Pushing my buttons

So after unplugging my headphones and microphone, and then deciding that none of my dictation programs were working properly, I have purchased the new version of DragonDictate. For quite a while now I've preferred to be able to talk to my computer, rather than struggle with typing on it.

I needed it so it's a good investment. And then I looked down and found out that my microphone and headphones were unplugged. The basic  element in trying to make  the programmes work!

I would regard myself as technologically savvy. I can usually solve almost all problems that occur on my computer, especially since moving over to Mac five or six years ago. 

I'm an Apple junkie. The iPhone 5 is on my Christmas list and I am toying with buying myself a new desktop as mine is now 5 years old and would probably benefit from replacing.  particularly having seen them on the website, like most Apple products, it is a thing of beauty and one that I can't wait to have on my desk. (Incidentally keep watching this space for a good deal on a very good condition second-hand iMac which I'm sure I'll be offering for sale at some point in early December)

The experience is good too. I popped into the Apple store in Covent Garden the other day just to ask a question about the new i macs and although the guy I asked  didn't immediately know the answer, he scooted  off in his little apple t shirt to bring me two busy fellow geeks who most certainly did. They set my mind at rest about how I can transfer my data from my existing I mac to my new super thin one that does not even have a DVD drive.

Last Friday at dinner with our friends Sam and Martin, I poked fun at the latter and his use of the phrase " and we have got a really interesting new IT strategy" I asked how such a thing could ever be interesting. 

And yet it is, at home, in the comfort of our study. Ever since Rich persuaded  me to buy a computer 12 years ago  so I could keep in contact with him by e mail while I was away on a job in Geneva, I have loved them.

 They  have given me  my fair share of heart attacks and pulse racing  moments - the other Sunday one of  my external hard rives could not be read which just happened to have five years tax information and accounts on it. Be warned -  back up now.

In general they make my life easier  and more pleasurable. Last week I was  able not only to speak to Rich every day in Australia, but to see him too. It makes a huge difference.  When I went out to Oz in late 2005 I spent ten minutes each morning at a pay phone in the hotel lobby with a phone calling card to ring both Rich and Mum. Yet now, there was Rich reclining in his bed each morning on waking to talk to me the previous night back here in the Uk.

Last weeks play that I staged for the south-western Cancer network  had the whole of its sound plot loaded onto an iPad. Sound effects, music, everything, and all I had to do  was to plug my iPad into their PA system on arrival and tap the right effect at the right point in the play. Not that I want  to put sound operators out of work, but that was something even I could manage.

Inevitably the computer does make our life easier, and yet at the same time it is also responsible for a great deal of the work that I do.

Many graduates now are much more content to send an email to colleagues  than have a face-to-face conversation with them. So the market in communications skills will continue to increase and hopefully long may it do so.

And at home I can dabble away producing videos, music, documents, and shortly our Christmas card, all on my own computer in the privacy of my own home. So perhaps I Martin an apology. Perhaps an IT strategy is just a part of my life as it is of his. And perhaps it's just as interesting……….. to me anyway.