07 December 2010

Tech Tuesday – Lenovo ideapad plus Bluetooth 2.1 USB Microadapter = Genealogist Heaven

My husband, MJ, is a technology geek. Let me say here, I love my technology geek. It’s too bad everyone can’t have one. There is hardly anything sexier than a man who will listen to his genealogy geek wife complain about not being able to get online while sitting here:



and then do something about it. 

MJ got me the Lenovo Ideapad, model S10-3t. I love it too, maybe not as much as my geek, but quite a lot. My primary laptop is a Dell Latitude E6500. It has super capacity and can handle Lightroom and Photoshop, but because of that ability, it is super heavy, far too heavy to carry through airports. I wanted something I could throw in my handbag.

My new Ideapad is easy to take anywhere and weighs less than three pounds. I looked at the IPAD for a while because it is just way cool, but it couldn’t run the programs I knew I wanted to have with me in my travels; namely Windows Live Writer, Microsoft Outlook, Dropbox, Evernote and Roots Magic. The Ideapad runs all of these, has a full size keyboard and touch screen capability. The screen can flip around and lie flat so that I can read books on it with the Amazon Kindle application. If I want to share my pictures, all I have to do is connect my portable hard drive and I can show them on the screen. 

One would think I would be happy with my new Ideapad, but I still couldn't get online at the barn, where I sit sometimes for hours, while my daughter spends with the horses. I could be so much more productive if I could just get online during that time. Sexy Technology Geek to the rescue!

Last night for the seventh night of Hanukkah, MJ gave me a Bluetooth 2.1 USB Microadapter. Greek to you? Greek to me. It's a tiny little thing (think fingernail) that plugs into a USB port. Once installed, it connects with your mobile phone and, voila, you have mobile 3g internet.  

[MJ Shoer] Well, maybe not that simply, but you get the idea.  Here’s how it actually works…You have a Droid Incredible smart phone which is an Android phone. There’s a great free application called PdaNet that lets you tether to your phone to get internet access. Now I could have done that by simply connecting your phone to the Ideapad with the USB charging cable, but sexy technology geek decided it would be way cooler to do this wirelessly, thus the Bluetooth adapter. The adapter connects to your phone on which is a nifty little shortcut you click and in seconds your Ideapad is wirelessly surfing the Internet via my Droid’s 3G Internet. Very cool and very productive.

I tried this out today, Tech Tuesday, while waiting for my daughter at the dentist's office. MJ left me instructions in a document right on my desktop. They were very easy to follow. If I could do it, you could too. Even without your own Sexy Technology Geek.  

Happy Searching!

Scrappy Gen

 

2 comments:

  1. My husband is a real techno geek, too. I love having him set up everything related to technology, the computer, the TV components, you name it! I keep telling my daughter that nerds make the best boyfriends. We took her to the last MIT class reunion and she was actually surprised there were so many handsome men there, and every last one of them was a nerd!

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