iPhone 5, from a non-techie perspective.

Before we begin, I should clear something up. Like a lot of autistic lads around my age, I had an interest in some things until I dug deep enough or saw them change enough to recoil in horror. Information techology, or rather the way it is implemented today, is one of those things. I could go on for a while about how it came to be this way, but it is not really all that relevant here. The reason I mention it is because I want you to understand where I am coming from when I talk about the new iPhone and certain details thereof.

I adopted a Gryphon Hatchling.

As much as I gripe about the business and programming practises of the software company known as Blizzard Entertainment, I have to hand it to them where marketing skills and revenue stream diversity are concerned. Like any good company in a deregulated economy, Blizzard are well aware that they cannot make anywhere near the profit they do if they restrict their trade solely to software. So novels, keyrings with authenticators, novelties based on the games, and even digital pieces that can be added to the games, are offered in their online store.

So I was running VirusBarrier earlier this week…

As long-time readers might already be aware, I opted out of the whole Windoze Unpaid Bugtester craze some time ago now. Although there are times when I curse the inconvenience associated with some of the effects, I do happen to feel that I am better for it. However, just like there are myths and stupid misconceptions associated with autism, skin cancer, diabetes, and just about everything else of significance in my life, there are also myths and stupid misconceptions associated with my computer of choice, the Apple iMac.

Well, two things I feel a need to speak about now

Before I say anything else, I want to make something clear to the reading public out there. Whilst most, if not all, of my posts have been written with the offline journal writing program called Qumana, I have started to find it a most unsatisfactory editor for my purposes. This is not to say that I do not recommend it to people who are looking for a cheap (ie free) editor for their posts, but several problems with the interface have made me decide to look elsewhere. Even for a solution that I must pay money for. Probably the straw that broke my proverbial camel’s back is that on the iMac that I use for all my computing needs, the almost-universal keyboard combination to move back and forth in text on a word by word basis is to hold down the Alt/Option key and press the left or right arrow keys. But for reasons best known to its programmers, Qumana seems to feel that users should hold down the Command key and use the left and right arrow keys to achieve the same effect. This inconsistency with the standard (and yes, I know how that sounds coming from me) has caused me confusion not only when attempting to use Qumana, but also when trying to carry out tasks in other programs. The Command key usually has all of the most powerful and important keyboard commands of the OS X user interface associated with it. Save, Load, Cut, Copy, Paste, and most importantly of all, the Quit command. In OS X, quitting most programs involves holding down Command and pressing Q. When migrating over from Windoze, this can present some confusion at first, but now that I have gotten used to it, I have to say that it is a far better system for closing programs. Qumana threatened to create confusion in that, so I am going to phase it out.