Wednesday, November 23, 2011

IPad woes

I haven't figured out how to use the IPad properly for blog posting. Even though the drafts I've written look OK..when posted, the text turns into one long paragraph. Hiccups repaired in the draft appear as intact hiccups in the posted text...capitalization etc. I'm hesitant enough about publishing my scribbles...mortified by the IPad end result. I love having the thing with me to read and answer my email, watch TED lectures during airport waits and for reading, currently Damascus Gate by Robert Stone. I intended to attend an Apple class but they are few and far between.. they fill up almost immediately. Has anyone used an online tutorial which might be helpful?

As I carp about these inconveniences, I remember how it used to be "on the road". Carrying your cash around in one of those hideous money belts. In all my old travel photos my measurements were 32-36-32...the 36 dwindling to 35 then to 34 as the travel moved forward and the money was spent. Writing letters to make hotel reservations and waiting weeks sometimes for confirmations. Paper airline tickets with 14 copies of everything..lose it and you were dead. There's an ATM right across the street here and they've never been more than a block away from anywhere. I can carry a couple of hundred shekels around and of course use the credit card for almost everything.

Last time we were in Bali (last December) ATM's had appeared everywhere and are even air conditioned. At the Denpasar airport home to perhaps 30 Indian change makers notorious for giving out incorrect change, a row of gleaming machines replaced the dimly lit row of cubicles I used to shudder to approach.

The only real shuddering we've done here is with the taxi drivers. Most we've had have tried to cheat us....they forget to turn on the meter and half-way through the ride start negotiating the fare; they give incorrect change; they take the longest possible route if you're on the meter. I read about these practices before we arrived but didn't quite believe it but after 4 or 5 incidents I'm convinced. They view a fare as a wallet attached to a person with the emphasis on wallet.They employ every means possible to empty that wallet before you're out of the cab. This is the last ugly run-on post...we're catching a plane tonight/tomorrow morning and returning to the luxuriously, deliciously large keyboard and monitor.

3 comments:

  1. A class won't help, maybe some third party software - not a great publishing tool. I have ran into all of the same walls...

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  2. Sorry, I can't help with the IPad, I don't like Apple products and I never owned one.
    Have a good homecoming!

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  3. Thought you might get a kick out of this....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFPfLuUpYMY

    ReplyDelete