Asus EEeeee etc -- granny friendly?
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From: Ian Rawlings on 29 Nov 2008 14:49 On 2008-11-29, Daniel James <wastebasket(a)nospam.aaisp.org> wrote: > My 701 plays commercial DVDs (from a USB DVD drive) with no apparent > problems (and I don't care about any that aren't apparent) with the > built-in player. DVD doesn't use mp4 with h.264 encoding, which is more processor intensive than mpeg-2 is on both playback and encoding. However whatever it was that was causing the slowdown has been sorted, mostly accidentally. My target market, i.e. my mum, has however flatly refused the Eee on the basis of the size, it's too small for her. I'll take it back to the shop tomorrow or Monday and will await my Pandora, and see if I want an Eee in addition to that. -- Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire! http://youtube.com/user/tarcus69 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarcus/sets/
From: Daniel James on 30 Nov 2008 11:17 In article news:<slrngj375r.jhj.news06(a)desktop.tarcus.org.uk>, Ian Rawlings wrote: > DVD doesn't use mp4 with h.264 encoding, which is more processor > intensive than mpeg-2 is on both playback and encoding. That's true. I was worrying more about how the video system dealt with the stream after it had been decoded, but you're right that the decoding may be the significant factor. > My target market, i.e. my mum, has however flatly refused the Eee > on the basis of the size, it's too small for her. It's difficult ... she wants compact but not small! TBH I'm not surprised she found it too small, but I'm sure it was a worthwhile experiment. SWMBO tried to get her grandmother (now sadly deceased, but then 103) online with a full-size Tosh laptop with 13"+ screen and it took a lot of tweaking to get the screen displaying characters with enough size and enough contrast. Strangely the thing she found hardest was typing as she'd never seen a QWERTY keyboard before. She'd grown up before the era in which young ladies were taught typing at school as an essential career skill ... hard to remember there was such a time ... Now that just about everyone has access to a PC and needs that skill they don't seem to teach it anyone any more. Cheers, Daniel.
From: Martin Gregorie on 30 Nov 2008 12:15 On Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:17:28 +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > Now that just about everyone has access to a PC and needs that skill > they don't seem to teach it anyone any more. > Does that mean that touch typing is a dieing art? I taught myself to type, initially on ASR-33 Teletypes and a Flexowriter since those was the only keyboards available at the time, and in consequence am a strictly two finger typist. I believe this is pretty common among self-taught typists, with touch-typing being almost a hall- mark of people who have attended typing classes. I'm really curious to know if this impression is correct. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
From: Whiskers on 30 Nov 2008 12:53 On 2008-11-30, Martin Gregorie <martin(a)see.sig.for.address.invalid> wrote: > On Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:17:28 +0000, Daniel James wrote: > >> >> Now that just about everyone has access to a PC and needs that skill >> they don't seem to teach it anyone any more. >> > Does that mean that touch typing is a dieing art? > > I taught myself to type, initially on ASR-33 Teletypes and a Flexowriter > since those was the only keyboards available at the time, and in > consequence am a strictly two finger typist. I believe this is pretty > common among self-taught typists, with touch-typing being almost a hall- > mark of people who have attended typing classes. > > I'm really curious to know if this impression is correct. I think the ability to type accurately and quickly without being able to see the keyboard, is the hallmark of a genuine touch-typist. I can't do that; but I can type rapidly, albeit erratically and with sub-optimal accuracy, using all my fingers and thumbs - as long as I can see the keys to get my fingers back in the right place when they wander! My ability to use my fingers independently of each other probably derives from childhood piano lessons. Touch-typing was a very valuable skill in the days of manual type-writers and no "correcting fluid"; indeed, one could build a career on it. Now that we have spelling-checkers and can over-type errors without leaving a trace in our electronic medium, that skill is useful but not, for most people, worth months of very boring disciplined classes to acquire. -- -- ^^^^^^^^^^ -- Whiskers -- ~~~~~~~~~~
From: Dave Liquorice on 30 Nov 2008 14:10
On Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:53:30 +0000, Whiskers wrote: >>> Now that just about everyone has access to a PC and needs that skill >>> they don't seem to teach it anyone any more. Not taught at primary school that's for sure but they all have access to and use computers. I feel that it ought to be taught at least in some basic form but I'm not sure that 5 or 6 year olds have the language abilty for it. >> Does that mean that touch typing is a dieing art? > > I think the ability to type accurately and quickly without being able to > see the keyboard, is the hallmark of a genuine touch-typist. Agreed that's why the F and J keys have tactile mark as these are the "home" keys for the index finger of each hand. A real touch typist watches the screen not the keys, corrects as they go along and rattles through at well over 60 words per minute all without taking their eyes of the screen. I'm two fingers and thumb on my right hand and one finger on my left. I have a copy of Mavis Beacon somehere and did try to follow it but it is pretty tedious, probably because I have a lot of bad habits to break, the hardest being not to look at the keys. -- Cheers Dave. |