Technology on a Potters Budget

Jeff and I took a big leap last week...

and bought an iPad! We have been wanting one since we switched to using square for our credit card processing. Using the square and our smart phones has saved us a lot of money on processing fees but there have been a few downsides:

1. We have small smart phones.
2. Customers are in the gallery and we left our phones in the house.
3. If the bluetooth chip reader is connected to one phone it doesn't seamlessly switch to the other... so customers have to wait for us to connect the reader.
4. People are handling your phone, signing with their finger on your screen... your phone rings and you place it on your face. What a great way to spread germs, especially during flu season!

I can't even tell you how much research we did before deciding on this tablet. We looked at android tablets. It seemed the affordable ones weren't compatible with the square chip reader. New iPads are super expensive and definitely not in our price range. Refurbished ones that we found online had great prices but some of the sellers, from reading reviews, seemed sketchy. In the end we decided on a refurbished iPad Air 1 from Apple. The case, glass, and battery are new. It comes with the same warranty as a new tablet. The price fit our budget of around $300.

Jeff and I love technology but we don't have lots of extra dough to throw around. We keep our cell phones and computers for as long as possible. My MacBook Pro is a 2009 model! This new iPad should also give us years of service.

Macbook Pro Problem Solving

A couple of months ago, I was working at the Co-op and it was a slow day. I brought along a netflix DVD to watch, which I rarely do. When I put it in the dvd drive of my macbook pro, the drive made lots of spinning sounds, then spit the dvd out. I assumed it was an issue with the dvd, but upon returning home, I found that the drive wouldn't accept any cds or dvds! I was totally irritated, because in the three years of owning this mac, I have not used the drive very often. I did some research and read that one, the lens could be dirty, or two, the drive died, which seems is quite common with macbooks. For the last few weeks I have been meaning to purchase a drive cleaner but never got around to it. Today, while searching for a cleaner online, I came across a site with some simple cleaning solutions. I followed the instructions and low and behold it WORKED! I thought I would share the process in case any other mac users run into this same issue.

Macbooks don't have a slide out tray on their dvd drives... the discs get sucked into a slot. To clean it, dampen a small cotton cloth with alcohol or window cleaner. I happened to have some LCD cleaning pads so I used one of those. I used Windex as the cleaner because I have great faith in Windex! Wrap the cloth around the edge of a credit card and insert it part way into the drive.

The lens of the dvd is located on the left side of the drive and only a little ways in... I concentrated on swiping that area the most. There was quite a bit of grime on the cloth when I was done. Since I live in an old log cabin and everything we own is subject to clay dust, I think I will clean the drive this way every couple of months. I hope this post saves someone else the aggravation I went through!

the replacement

Last month I got an e-mail from Apple saying that my first generation iPod nano was being recalled. They said that the battery could over heat and catch on fire and they were going to replace it! The thing was more the five years old and only had a 2g hard drive.

Apple didn't say what they would replace it with... did they have a stockpile of the originals with better batteries that they would send out to the masses? I mailed the old thing back to them and yesterday my replacement arrived...

A new 8g nano, the most current version! My only worry is that it is so darn small that I might lose it...

The iPod on the left was John's and it's 3 years old and that is about the size of my old one... look how tiny the new one is! It does have some cool features... like a pedometer and a clock that you can change the face on...

There are 18 different clock faces including Minnie & Mickey and Kermit the frog! I must say I am impressed that Apple replaced a well used iPod that spent lots of time in clay studios with the newest version and a bigger hard drive. It feels like I got a bonus Christmas present :-).