JoBook IV

With quite a bit of activity since Friday, you may of wondered what might  of been going on here but on Friday I noted there seemed to be a flash sale on at Amazon and something got me interested

I had been talking about about technology in a less point scoring way with my BFF who uses her smartphone a lot and well as most of you know I don't use one them having a regular long lasting cellphone and a portable music player for sound, preferring to be switched off when I'm out.

I had seen and have sometimes contemplated owning a tablet but aren't very co-ordinated so swiping might be an issue and I prefer a keyboard as much as just being able to turn it on and do something appeals.

There have been a few attempts to mix small form computers with a  keyboard from  Netbooks around 2008 to about 2011, optional keyboards for tablets to so called 2 in 1 'transformer' tablets with snap off detachable keyboards but these really have taken off in the last five years,

This was on offer for some 20 % which helped.

It is what is called a Chromebook which in a lot of ways are a cross between the functions of a Tablet but with a keyboard and thanks to working remotely by the internet can do things like basic editing of pictures, handle documents and emails as well as use internet sites such as Facebook.

It also is integrated more with A.I. compared with my last one plus the backlit keyboard is a boon when working in dull environments.

The thing they don't do is play massive games, use the iTunes store or copy music from cd but to be honest most of us use our computers through browsers 90% of the time.

You do things like writing documents using apps just like a tablet or smart phone but you get a bigger screen which is more suited to watching say a movie online.

 
This happens because it uses a form of Linux running through the Chrome browser to control its functions and that runs very quickly  on a less powerful processor, making the battery last around 14 hours maximum and not get too hot to touch.

This Asus is really intended for Junior high schoolers used often in education which kind of clinched it for because it is simple to use and robust matching my needs so you could say it's the perfect JoBook.

The screen is a super HD 1980x 768 but common on small laptops being an improvement on the 1440 x 768 of my older notebook which helps using most site layouts showing more without using the cursor which has a lovely bold black pointer.

 
There wasn't much to do upon opening it beyond confirming it had a UK layout keyboard and that I speak English, you just log onto your network (and the Wifi is really fast) and enter you Google Account which if you've use things like GMail, Blogger and GooglePlus you'll have anyway and you're away.

Ir picked up my previous Google bookmarks and passwords just fine.

It has 2 USB 3.1 sockets, plus a USB c, a HDMI connector  for a monitor, a headphone jack and SD C and then  there's cloud storage too.

Google Chrome looks after updating itself for you without the seven hundredth update keeping you up all night and shockingly can be used after 10 seconds and switches off after about 3 seconds which makes it ideal for checking your emails or social media accounts.

For what I want it for, it's ideal.

Things to do on a rainy day

As I write this, it's really been something of a damp squid of a weekend with very heavy rain, power issues in parts of the country and no good for being out of doors which as I said the other week is really more my thing.
Instead I've been otherwise engaged with more mundane things such as sorting out bookmarks on the Chromebook because my bookmarks go back at around 2006/7 being imported from machine to machine regardless of browser over that period.
Sometimes it can be good for finding a old post about something I recall particularly if it has some otherwise hard to find information in it.
On the other hand you may draw a blank because either the site no longer exists like Google + or it's a persons blog on a site that has been removed or they shut down such as on Tumblr and so serves no real purpose.
The great thing about Google Accounts is being synchronized it doesn't matter on what you view on, all things like bookmarks and password changes are all saved across the board so I thought it was a good use of time this weekend.
One thing you can do is still life photography of either objects like coins, models or like this, flowers.
I also listened to a few recordings I hadn't played in a while while I wait for some new old titles to slowly come in being ordered from various separate suppliers.
 

Making plans in Joville

I might as well begin where we left off and say the Sanriotown.com site eventually fixed its security certificate issue without actually acknowledging really somebody's job is to ensure they keep it up to date and apply the new one which considering this potentially could resulted in breaches of Children's Data is pretty serious.
One advantage in having your browsers information used with your Google Account is it always stays in step across different machines so if you've been as online as long as I have you can whip out the old laptop and edit the bookmarks as sites either lose all interest to you, Tumblrs get removed or sites have shut down for good  in the knowledge every machine you use will now be updated.
This probably is something I should of done a while back to be honest but the idea of doing to separate machines one by one put me off.
That said the new machine is working out fine for things like chatting with my BFF when the laptop isn't just overkill but takes a while to boot up and then runs warm which on a day like Saturday when it was almost 30 degrees C is the last thing you need as your sipping water by the beakerful, trying to stay cool.
One of of staying cool emotionally is listening to various kinds of classical music so I've spent part of the last week listening to a both the last disc in a set of Mozart Sonatas I have been collecting and a box of recordings by the Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan that I used to own on record when I was younger.
I have decided what to do about the original Fur Affinity account that I got locked out of about three years ago and ended up having to remake it moving over pictures and the like as mysteriously it became unlocked but by this point there really was little point moving my posts back there because having made the current one home especially having got everyone who was following before to follow the new account.
Instead it'll be my secondary for the odd littlespace post that might go into my feelings and those bits of my life like spanking that doesn't easily slot into the other especially because of the Tumblr changes from November and December of last year that made it impossible to post links to this blog on it and effectively prevented me from posting anything that linked regression, emotion regulation issues and spanking on that site in the way one account I had on their did (and was much loved).
It isn't that there aren't some sites that do permit spanking talk (or even images) it's more that many of those that do go into fetishes like 'extreme' sissification, bondage, gore etc which I don't feel remotely comfortable with even if one is okay with caregiver/little relationships that may include nonsexual spanking.

JoBook 2

As mentioned at Furry Story Time, I had been experiencing  computer problems and needed borrow another machine temporarily.
In the beginning there was the JoBook tm that arrived around September 16, 2016 which a kind of replacement for a Netbook that was incredibly slow on busy sites such as Tumblr and in any event had died totally.
That chromebook, a Lenovo N22 that had over the years had the ability  to use Google Apps supplemented by Android ones had been performing well being used to check emails with, use on Tumblr, FA, the IK chat and Lil Jennies story time  seemed to develop a fault that left it with static lines flying across the screen.
Thus I really needed to get a replacement organized for it as it used rather a lot.

This is JoBook 2 a Samsung XE303C12-A01UK which like the original is a 11.6 inch screen with a unspectacular but adequate 1366 x 768 resolution which is fine for general usage or watching anything from the BBC iPlayer on.
It has 16gb of memory but that's expandable to whatever you want using a SD card and 2gb of RAM which unless you've got absolutely heaps of tabs open is fine with the Chrome Os which is a kind of Linux in a browser system that doesn't suck processing power unlike Windows.
It comes in nice silver trim and like practically all of the species has a built in video cam should it be needed.
Hopefully it won't be long before it arrives and be quickly set up.

Learning past and present

One difference between the kind of education I had and that of many children today centres around how we were taught.
For most of my education for instance generally the teacher led the class learning determining what the days topic was in any given subject. They often would dictate notes or write them down on a chalk board for you to copy to your exercise book sometimes with drawings or diagrams too which was fun if you were not good at writing or spelling things as you'd struggle to keep up.
Sometimes we'd have school made duplicated work sheets for some subjects such as Combined Science to complete as we did experiments with bunsen burners, electricity and magnets.
In History we often read from and makes notes using set text books and all homework (and there was heaps of it!) was to be completed by hand.

This scene would be almost familiar to me in high school as we'd move from old style individual wooden desks to clusters of tables and plastic chairs except for one thing.
That's right, where the girl is sat we'd have our exercise book but she has a laptop which looking at this picture closely is something most of her peers do not suggesting she has 'special needs' and has been given one for 'writing up things' with.
That is something I'd of benefited from personally as my hand writing was poor and spelling pretty rotten too.
A number of schools today have huge screens,  some interactive, for teaching with rather than chalkboards (they were called Blackboards until some edict came down saying that word was racist!) but debate rages as to whither or not this is any more effective from the chalkboard and rote learning we had.