My New iPad - Part 2

Donald let me know yesterday was "National Geek Day," insinuating that that might actually be of some importance to me.  ME!  pfft.    (The man is SUCH a smart aleck)

I have to tell you; if anyone had  told me a few years ago that I might in any way, shape or form be in danger of becoming a computer geek (or nerd!  EEK!), I would have just hooted.  But, fact is - I love computers and fritzing around with them.   I hate the phone, so email is my preferred method of contact with the world.  Facebook?  Love it!  It's a terrific source of social interaction for an introvert like me who is easily tired by some social situations.  (note:  No I am NOT shy.  Not in the least, but yes - I am very much an introvert.  As the Myers-Briggs facilitator stated - an introvert can do exceptionally well socially IF it's a social setting of their choosing, with people of their choosing, WHEN they choose it.  Spot on.).  Anyhooo - I digress . . .  for more on how I feel about being an introvert,  you can read an old post here if you're interested.

Back to the computer geeky thing . . .

I am an idiot once I try to move outside my immediate comfort zone of knowledge with computers.  And that is frustrating.

Once I "get" it, everything seems to click into place, but I don't have an aptitude or much  in the way of intuitiveness about it all. 

And to illustrate what I'm saying, here's a little progress report on me and my iPad.

I was able to pretty much set it up all by myself.  Synced it on my work computer with iTunes just as the instructions said and it all went quite well.   Luckily though, I was able to capture my favorite IT guy, and he did help me get my email account set up. 

I immediately went to the App Store and downloaded a few free Apps.  iBooks being the first one (of course).  I did somehow end up with a book downloaded.  I'm not at all sure how that happened, but it's Winnie the Pooh, so who's gonna argue about that?!  But, I need to figure out how that happened so I don't end up with a lot of books I don't want.

And I ordered a carrying case.  Red (oh boy).  It's pretty and I'm excited about getting it, but . . . this calls for a little gripe, I think.  WHY on earth doesn't the new iPad come with a carrying case?  Some sort of case or cover so that the screen doesn't get scratched?!  I'm sorry, but for the cost of these little devils, a case of some kind should, in my opinion, be a given.   Meanwhile, it needs to be stored and carried in the box it came in, and for an extra precaution, also in the plastic wrap it came in.

The next thing I did was copy photographs over from my computer.  I knew there would be duplicates of some because as I save pictures to use here in the blog, or to email to friends and family, I save them with a different name so that when I finish with a particular photo and delete it, I won't be deleting my only copy.  Well,  it took FOREVER for the pictures to copy over and no wonder.  There were duplicates of every single picture and 5 copies of many.  What I "think" happened is that it copied my "My Pictures" folder AND my camera software pictures folder.

All those pictures were going to be eating into space and memory, so I contacted Apple and they quickly helped me out.  They recommended deleting all the pictures and starting over which is exactly what I wanted to do.  I'm going to take some time and carefully choose the photos I want to copy next time.

Regarding contacting Apple.  This deserves high praise.  Apple wins a prize for being the easiest company in the computer industry to get in touch with.  If you go on-line to apple.com support and fill out a short little request and request that they call you back, they do.  Within ONE MINUTE!!  Amazing.  There are many companies that you cannot get in touch with no matter what.  I finally got in touch with one huge computer entity's accounting office just because it was the only phone number I could come up with.  I was then told there was NO technical support in place  -  sorry.   No customer service either.  I was told to check out their on-line FAQ and that should answer all my questions.  (It didn't)

Which brings me to another point.  If you're like me, and not very technically savvy, it's actually pretty difficult to even know the proper questions to ask.  Or is that just me?  For example.

I talked with Apple this morning about how to get all the information from my Palm Zire 72 transferred to my iPad.  All my contacts, calendar events, and miscellaneous notes.

I was told to call Palm support and have them help me.  That they would help me transfer all that into an Outlook file.  Then to get back in touch with Apple and they would help me import it onto my iPad.

I got ahold of Palm, and they understood immediately what I needed.  They took control of my computer (a little scary) and downloaded all the info into a file.  It took a LONG time.

I then called Apple back, gave them the case number from my earlier call and asked if they could help me.  I was, apparently, using all the wrong words and unfortunately, I was talking to someone who was giving me credit for being a whole lot smarter about all this then I am. (or so dumb it wasn't going to work no matter what).

Their answer to all this was that everything needed to be in an Outlook file.  Right.  I agreed.  And it was.  Actuallty, it must have been even before I called Palm because my entries in my Palm Pilot do show up on my computer (after syncing) in Outlook.  I have an Outlook Calendar and my contacts are also there. 

Anyway.  Mr. Apple Guy walked me through to the iTunes sync screen necessary to do what I wanted to do, but it didn't work.  I'm sure we probably could have worked it out, but I was frustrated.  And tired.  Tired and frustrated.  NOT a good time to try to do something when you don't have a clue as to what you're doing.  I started this whole process at about 11:30 a.m., and it was now 3:30 p.m.  I thanked Mr. Apple Guy for his time, said we'd get back to it tomorrow, thank you very much, and hung up.  Truthfully, I'm tempted to just start the long arduous task of entering all that info manually.  But.  I'll just be patient and try again tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes.  I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I have used the iPad for email, and I've used it for Facebook, and I've just kinda wandered around in it a little trying to learn my way around and I'm sure I'm going to love it.  I watched the video guide at apple.com and it's very good, although I do think they could have included a little more.  Or do a second, more in depth version, perhaps.  For example - surely I'm not the only person interested in knowing how to delete photos.  

So.  That's where we are.

I'll continue posting on my progress, so if you're interested, please continue checking back every few days.  AND, please - any of you who have an iPad, please feel free to jump in with hints and suggestions.  Obviously, I'm in need.

Part 3 coming soon . . .