Firing Up My Wood-Burning iPad

Next month my iPad will be four and a half years old. I bought it as a present to myself for my 63rd birthday, a couple of weeks after I retired from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. Technologically, it’s already hopelessly out-of-date, the iOS having surpassed its capabilities a couple of releases ago. I kind of gave up on it and was mostly letting my youngest daughter play games on it.

Then, a couple of days ago, Marcia Conner contacted me, wanting to know if I was interested in helping her update the technology references in a book she co-authored and, perhaps, write a new chapter to add on as well. We talked the following day and I enthusiastically accepted the challenge. This, of course, is provided the publisher goes along with her proposal.

Anyway, to help me figure out what’s going on, she sent me four files, one of which is a .mobi – a Kindle – file. Unfortunately, yesterday I started feeling a nasty chest cold coming on and today I wasn’t really up for sitting at my Mac and reading. I do have the Kindle app on my iPad, so I decided to see if I could make use of it. I had no trouble importing the book into my Mac, but it seemed I could only upload the file on my iPad via a GDrive app and each time I opened it I had to start at the beginning, as there was no bookmarking functionality.

Then I discovered, serendipitously, I have an email address I can send all kinds of files to so I can access them through my Kindle app. The other three I had received were Word docs and a .pdf and I sent all four of them to the email address and, voila, I now have access to all of them via the world’s most expensive Kindle device . . . but at least I can lie down and read, which is how I’ve always enjoyed books. I can also bookmark, which is an absolute necessity IMO when you’re doing research or learning something.

Also, even if the deal falls through I’ve already had a positive experience and . . . the book is not just good, but right in my wheelhouse. More to come if this happens.