Good morning! Probably afternoon by the time I finish this draft, actually… I have a couple of functional and back end updates on the website to tell you about.
I’m always fiddling and tweaking with something, but one of the biggest challenges I’ve had lately is being able to work on my site while someone else is using the computer. I have always felt like the physical interaction (ergonomics, mouse/keyboard tactile interaction, screen size and resolution, available programs and ease of use) to facilitate creation was best on a desktop computer. I’ve gotten around the posting problem by e-mailing myself drafts, but navigating the back end on Safari(iPad) is annoying at best.
I’ve always felt like really creating anything of quality on the tablet was pretty impossible. It seems to be meant more for consuming the Internet and media: the touch-pad type interface is clunky to me, and the drawing/writing apps don’t have the precision I require for photo editing, even when using a stylus. Granted, I have a mini so it’s not a very big screen. But, I’ve fiddled with Lance’s full-size iPad and was no more impressed with that. I had a nook for awhile and that was great for ebook reading, but the interfaces for the Internet weren’t very intuitive on that even for simply checking e-mail. I have dealt with android on several different devices and completely hate it. So, as an interface for consumption, the iPad is the best option for me. For creating… Not so much.
My computer is the best place for the kids to watch their shows (which is usually the major interference) and since it’s the only computer in the house, Tim likes to use it when he gets home from work. If I’m using the computer and any combination of children are awake and at home, they want to sit on my lap and ask continual questions about what I’m doing, or beg me to stop doing it so they can do something else. This is not an ideal situation for enough head space to write a Facebook update, much less a complete, coherent blog post. (You should see the backlog of half-finished posts in my drafts folder…) The best time to write a post seems to be the sweet spot between after the kids go to bed and before I’m too tired to attempt to be creative. Some nights, that never happens.
Wow, that was a whole lot more explanation than you actually needed. The short version is: I found an app to update my personal blog from my iPad mini that will also allow me to format and edit not just the post but most of the back end without having to go to a browser on a ‘normal’ computer. Yay!
And the other update I wanted to tell you about was the addition of the “Subscribe” page. It just sends you an e-mail whenever I make a new post, so you can follow updates without checking the site compulsively.
Not big updates, but exciting for me!
