Thursday, June 20, 2019

Evanston: my new laptop? Charles Holmes?



        A raw, gray, windy, rainy day.  Here near the lake the temperature is 54º.  It does not feel like summer.  I will be glad to be in San Diego and back on GANNET next week.
        On the left above you see what may be my new laptop.  It is the 12.9” iPad Pro attached to a Brydge keyboard.  For comparison to the right is my 12” MacBook.
        The Brydge keyboard arrived last Friday.  Before that I was using an Apple Smart Keyboard Folio which has the virtue of being considerably lighter and connecting seamlessly with the iPad, but the Brydge is much superior as a keyboard.  It is in fact the best keyboard I can remember using.  Better than that on my MacBook or on Carol’s MacBook Air.  
        Here are the keyboard and iPad separated.

        
        The iPad is pushed into the two rubber surfaced hinges.  Once in the iPad is secure.  You can lift both holding onto the iPad alone and in fact Brydge advises you to do so as a test.  If the iPad comes out you are to bend the hinges slightly, which I have done.  Removing the iPad to use it alone is easy.
        As I have mentioned before I can do almost everything I need to do on the iPad and the iPad OS due to be released this fall will enable me to do even more.  I am not be able to  use iWeb to upload to my main site and I have had problems with Blogger uploading to this journal.  That may go away with the new OS, but I am writing this post in Blogger itself which may solve the conflicts between Pages and Blogger.
        On the negative side, the Brydge keyboard weighs 1.56 pounds, slightly more than the iPad itself.  Together they come to almost three pounds, about the same as a 13” MacBook Pro and a pound more than the 12” MacBook.  However with the Brydge keyboard attached, the 12.9” iPad still fits in the messenger bag I travel with.
        I will take both the iPad/Brydge and my MacBook with me to GANNET, but the iPad is definitely now my main computer.

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        This morning my friend, Tim, who happens to be in Chicago on business and with whom Carol and I had a splendid dinner and a very pleasant evening Tuesday, sent me the following from the June 20, 1897 edition of the KANSAS CITY JOURNAL.



        I have never heard of Charles Holmes or this voyage and I think I would have if it had been successful.   
        If any of you know anything about Charles Holmes I am most interested and ask you to write me.  There is a contact address at the main site.
        It was a most audacious plan at that time and still would be now.