Thursday, August 18, 2011

Granddaughter Lizzie (second from right in the sidebar Grandchildren picture) is among the many tens of thousands expecting A Level results today – a place at Birmingham University is at stake, in her case. She is Rachel and Ed’s youngest child.

And I have reached round 101 in the Mourning Shawl border. This is really rather exciting. So I should finish the border patterning today, and start on the transitional rounds, and, ideally, give some thought to the centre: (a) calculating with some care the relationship between the number of centre rows to be knitted and the number of border stitches, right and left, to be incorporated; and (b) at the very least, charting the first set of initials – MCRM – and thinking ahead to where the numerals for the year will go. In the middle, for them, but I still need to see exactly how deep they are and therefore exactly how far before the actual middle I need to start them.

Looking for something else yesterday I found the chart for the insertion I did in the Princess shawl when I signed and dated it. That gives me a “2”; “0” is just the letter “o” from the Rorem alphabet. All I need to think about is “1”.

We’d better have a picture soon.

And the only other thing to talk about is the iPad, which is pretty boring for non-iPad-owners.

iPad section

I cannot tell you how grateful I am for all of yesterday’s comments, to which I will often return. I didn’t do much myself yesterday. I felt sort of mentally tired from the previous day’s excitement. I went on reading Ruth Rendell – it’s getting better – and straightened out the Piecework subscription.

I think it’s the ideal magazine, for me, for digital subscription. There’s not all that much knitting in it; I would really begrudge it space amongst the magazine piles in the bedroom. But there’s much of interest, and I will continue dipping in to it at least until the next issue drops down from heaven.

Two matters in which you can continue to help me:

This morning I (think I) bought Julian Barnes’ new novel (cheaper than Rendell – but, of course, shorter). Where is it? When I tap the Kindle icon, I am taken back to the page I was most recently reading in Rendell. How can I see what other titles are available?

Ted: you said yesterday, "I offloaded photos from the digital camera to the iPad”. How did you do that, when the iPad seems to have no ports? But maybe I see – there is one cord, with iPad at one end and USB at the other which could be attached to a camera?

James says in an email this morning, interestingly,“you can't do much to tweak machines to do exactly what you want as opposed to what Apple thinks you want.”

Non iPad, non-knit

Lizzie just rang up. She got in.

14 comments:

  1. Congratulations to Lizzie - waiting for results is sheer torture!

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  2. Well done Lizzie :D My daughter awaits her MA results which are due soon. Stressful times.

    Yes please, we knitters need shawl pictures :D

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  3. Congrats to Lizzie. I work at a university and can report that for some folk here, stress levels are also high!

    on the kindle thing - i don't have an ipad, but I do have a kindle - pressing the 'home' button takes you back to the list of books/documents which are available...

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  4. Anonymous9:57 AM

    re photos - you can buy an adaptor that takes a camera
    memory card from the Apple store - you just plug in the card and the photos download, don't delete them if you also want to download them to your computer. The adaptor is in 2 parts, the second part takes the cable from the camera
    Jenny

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  5. For the Kindle app, pressing the home button won't work, you need to tap the screen with two fingers, and a "home" button will appear in the top left corner. Press that and you will go to the home page with all your books on. Love how they display with their miniature jackets - wish the kindle itself would do that.

    I learned some handy tips from the comments yesterday too!

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  6. As Jenny/Anon. wrote, you get an adaptor. But just to clarify: one bridges between the card and the iPad (so you plug the card into the adaptor that plugs into the iPad), and; the other bridges between the camera cable and the iPad. That's the cable that you use between camera and computer. Both adaptors come in the same box (you can't buy them separately), and I think that you may have to use one specific adaptor for a particular camera make/model. Play with it; see if you can use both. If so, decide which one you're most comfortable with. (I wouldn't take the card out of my camera, for example. I'm sure I'd lose it )

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  7. Anonymous12:52 PM

    Jean, I have the little adaptor that Ted talks about. I do take the card out of the camera, downloading the pictures begins automatically, and I replace it in the camera as soon as I finish, I don't delete the photos from the card, leave them there as back up.

    What I worry about losing is the little adaptor. We travel a lot so I keep a small bag (like a knitters' notion bag) in my backpack. All the chargers for the camera, mobile phone, iPad, etc. go in this bag, and it is replaced as soon as I am finished. I am a disorganized person by nature and have found that this is the only way I can be sure that I'll have everything I need, when (and where) I need it.

    Barbara M.

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  8. Woot for Lizzie!!!

    It astonishes me that British kids find out so late about where they will attend. Today is move-in day for our undergrads. The day of the traffic snarl around campus and anxious parents clutching maps wandering about. Usually mom is anxious, occasionally weepy and dad is laid-back. The whole thing is interesting for me to watch because so many of he kids here are fairly local (from the Southwestern US). I went to school on the complete opposite side of the country from my family. My mom and dad accompanied me by plane, dropped me off, said "Now, don't fail out" and left on a sight-seeing tour of the NorthEast, and left me to deal. No hovering about.

    Also today is the day of our all-faculty assembly... meaning I need to get up and at 'em now.

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  9. Jean, the Edinburgh public library seems to have a selection of ebooks (three different services' worth, in fact.) You'll need the app (free) for the service, but then it's like checking out books at the library via the internet--you get access to the ebook for 2 or 3 weeks (no overdue fines, you just lose access to the book!) Audiobooks too, but I don't have much experience with that.

    Congrats to Lizzie.

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  10. Congratulations to Lizzie!

    Also, you've not mentioned it so you may not know The Yarn Cake in Glasgow are running a 'Glasgow School of Yarn' event on 21st/22nd October to celebrate their first anniversary. Workshops, market place etc. I know you missed out on Knit Nation so this might be of interest as its only a trip along the M8!
    More details on their blog http://theyarncake.posterous.com/

    Yours,
    Mary

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  11. Here's a link that has several IPad informational links, such as the actual user manual, in PDF format:
    http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/04/ipad-101-user-guide/

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  12. Hooray for Lizzie!!

    Ditto for shawl pics. I'm plugging away at the Giovannina stole which has been a delightful knit.

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  13. Wonderful news for Lizzie. I'm sure she worked very hard and now she has earned her place. Well done.

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  14. Great info! I just found you site on bing, definitely gonna check out your other entries.This page is precious, I totally loved it, I’ll be back for much more!

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