Friday, July 25

Ketch Up

The door is on and now we are secure against the elements and any possible intruders. Russ and Butch worked on the fascia yesterday and will start on siding today. After the siding I will GET to help because the painting will be part of the process. There really is not much surface to paint so it should not take long.

Last night was the first beginners computer class. There were 4 people in attendance and none had a computer. Now that is taking it from the beginning!! Two of them will have theirs by next Thursday. They are purchasing Chromebooks. The school system here uses Chromebooks for their students for all the same reasons I encourage new people to go that way.

1. They are trouble free. There are no moving parts thus eliminating many of the issues of a regular laptop, like overheating, virus invasion, hard drive overload or malfunction, updates and maintenance. And they are very inexpensive. $200-$250.

2. Sharing a computer has never been easier than with a chromebook. Each person has their own sign in identity. Now that has been true on a regular computer for a long time but what is different is that if you went to the library and signed into your google account everything would be the same as when you signed in at home on your Chromebook. Everything syncs because your account and all your computing files etc are in "the cloud".

3. 95% of all the things you can do on a regular computer can be done on a Chromebook. The exception being specialized software such as a farm program where the software must be loaded on the computer.

4. And if all students are using either the Chrome browser on their own laptop or the Chromebook they are then all on the same page as far as teaching is concerned. It makes it much easier to teach when everyone is using the same system. It eliminates the need for such questions as "What operating system are you using?" Everyone has access to Chrome no matter what kind of computer they have or the operating system on that computer.

So everything went smoothly last night and I was pleased with the start.

While I was talking computing Butch and Russ went to the girls softball  finals in Fort Dodge because Jefferson is in the competition. The weather kind of screwed things up and made for a delay so they did not start until very late. The guys came home and then Butch listened to the game on the radio long after I was in bed. Jefferson ended up losing 4-0 but none of the girls are seniors so they should be a force to be reckoned with next year. They will be playing for 3rd or 4th place today. It has been an exciting week for Jefferson fans.

And that about sums things up.

No comments: