Tag: ipad

  • De-clutterer

    Photo by Laura Skelding, Austin American-Statesman

    The series of blog posts I mentioned before under the label “Project 2011 Tech-Awesome YOU!” (eh, maybe that name needed a little work) resurfaced as an article in the Life & Arts section of the Statesman on Sunday. It had a reworked lead and was tightened up quite a bit, but was probably more digestible than the three-part blog opus of last week.

    The advice on de-cluttering comes just as my wife and I are in the process or reorganizing our house, starting with our upstairs home office. Over my vacation, I spent two days (OK, maybe just a few hours spread over two days) getting rid of cardboard boxes that were littering the office, organizing review products to send back and putting together a stack of stuff to take to Goodwill and to donate to a local family organization. After it was all over, the office was much improved (we could actually walk around in it, not like before) even if I didn’t get to the CDs, books, software and other items that need sorting.

    We’re buying new desks and, possibly, a new computer since we find ourselves both working at home at the same time some weeks and I can’t spend a whole work day on a little laptop. Buying desks, it turns out, is way more complicated than buying a new computer. I’m learning a lot about what kind of workspace I’d like. Feel free to offer suggestions because I’m absolutely lost.

    The other piece that ran in the paper this week of mine was a reverse-published interview with the head of Austin’s Sony Online Entertainment studio about the launch of DC Universe Online.

    I’ve also been writing up a storm of iPad chlidren’s iPad reviews for Kirkus. In two weeks I will have written 50 of them, which I honestly didn’t think was possible when I started on them in November.

    And after months of uncertainty, I might have some good news to share on the NPR front soon. Here’s hoping.

  • Lilly in the paper

    I wrote a Raising Austin column for the paper that ran in Saturday’s American-Statesman. It’s about iPad apps aimed at toddlers that are mostly bedtime stories with lots of interactive elements.

    While pulling together the art for the piece, it was suggested at work that I try to get a photo of Lilly holding the iPad. I sat her in her bed, turned it on and tried to shoot photos but it became quickly clear that it was going to be impossible to get her to hold it away from her face but up to obscure it properly. (We didn’t want her entire face running in the paper; paranoid, maybe, considering her face is all over my Web site and online, but then you don’t see some of the letter and e-mail I get from readers of the newspaper.)

    In about two minutes, her arms were too tired to hold up the iPad, resulting in a regrettable incident where she bonked herself in the nose with it and started crying. Photo shoot over.

    We got one decent image, at least, and that’s what ran in the newspaper along with screen shots from some of the apps. The column also appeared as a Digital Savant blog entry earlier in the week.