Tag: Kindle

Age Related Macular Degeneration

Updated 28th August 2013 Still battling on. Suffered a couple of setbacks as the doctos gave me some rablets for High Blood Pressure and they may have been too successful as my eyes suffered. Nine months on my eyes may be recovering. Still I thought you might like this link to hear what an eyecare professional comment on the Macular society.

I also need to tell you taht I’m now taking 80mg Lutein each day and whether it’s actually working or whether it’s told my brain that this is a serious problem and needs to be dealt with i don’t know but it’s not as bad as when I initially had the HBP pills damage.

By the way my left eye developed Wet AMD.

Updated 02022011 Lutein. I read somewhere about positive effects of Lutein. The test cases used 20-39mg per day and got positive results. I’m fairly well built and I need to get a result so I’m taking 40mg per day. I need to clear my eyes fo the gunk if I can. It seems to be working as I’m back to reading the paper, in the right light of course and it’s easier to use the computer and the Kindle. I’m scheduled for another eye test in early July. I’ll report how we get on.

Posted 11012011 Age-related Macular Degeneration.

I found I was suffering from dry AMD about four months ago. I also have a slight void in the macular muscle which is distorting my vision.

My optician, well his lady assistant actually, picked it up and arranged a fast appointment with my optician / ophthalmologist, because he has an OCT (Optical coherence tomography) machine. Yes, there was the build-up of dry AMD. He arranged an appointment with the local eye hospital but the specialists there couldn’t see any build-up and sent me forth saying there was nothing there “I can’t see anything wrong.”

I assume that’s why they also have an OCT machine, because it can ‘see’ better than the human eye. However their machine is fairly old and can only take a photograph of three slices across the eye whereas my optician’s is the latest and takes 127 photographs – forty times more detailed.

Suffice to say I got a new appointment at a different eye hospital, with the same result even though their machine was slightly newer, but it only takes a photograph of seven slices across the eye, so my optician’s is still nearly twenty times more detailed.

I’ve told my optician that ‘in the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king’ and he’s the king, also that he has already seen more in his patients eyes than the ‘experts’ have done.

As far as treatment is concerned there’ is no treatment yet for Dry AMD, though possibly lutein may help. I’m taking 30mg per day in the hope that it’ll do some good. Also I’m hoping stem cell treatment may be possible at some stage.

Meantime I’ve turned down the brightness of my computer screen; bought a Kindle; rebalanced how much time I allocate to the various tasks I ask my eyes to do and I’ve bought a Blu-ray player.

But it’s not looking good.

No driving at night; no clear view of a person’s face; no recognising people across a room (except by listening); no newspapers;  no lip-reading;

As I said, it’s not looking good.

Cliff

In the future we will all be using our computers even more.

In the future we will all be using our computers even more.
14th January, upgraded our broadband to Voipadvantage and reduced our costs. The speeds are now 6.1mbs download and 865k upload and the line is weighted in favour of VoIP now matter what we’re using the internet for. I can already say its much better.
11 January 2011. I’ve recently purchased a Panasonic Blu-ray player. It has an Ethernet port, so I’ll be linking that to my eeePC to see what happens. – Good try but the manual referred to an Ethernet port that doesn’t exist!

Updated 7th January 2011. I’m now well into using my Kindle and I love it. I’ve converted my books using Amazon e-publishing and they are all available at the Kindle store. Now I’m updating my new website, with major help from my son in creating it. Finally I’m now starting to run my campaign to be elected as a local councillor, using my computers.

Updated 20th Nov 2009. I’m now experimenting with using Photoshop and GIMP to see whether I can create original art, rather than art from manipulating photographs. But do I need to. What’s the difference between creating an sketch of how I want the picture to look and using a photograph as my base point?

Original entry 3rd November 2009. In the future we will all be using our computers even more.

Currently I use my computer to:

  1. look at the latest news when I log onto the Internet using Google news, personalised for Shoreham news and F1 motor racing: and also to The Telegraph.
    2. Belong to an on-line gardening club    .
    3. Belong to U3A University of the Third Age.
    4. Manage my bank accounts, to make direct payments and to receive electronic payments.
    5. buy seeds, from my favourite seed suppliers; also to buy DVDs; walking gear; holidays and flights; telephone equipment;. 0
    6. Identify butterflies, birds, trees via Google Images.
    7. Buy images to illustrate documents and letters I’m writing.
    8. Search for details of tonight’s TV films & programmes.
    9. Drive our VoIP telephone, for low cost calls across the world and for voice messages,
    10. Link “Spotify” for on-line music either to the TV or to the 5.1 surround sound system; I have copied my CDs onto my 16Gb Memory stick for direct use.
    11. Project electronic pictures onto my TV screen, either my own photographs or images I have purchased.
    12.Send and receive emails, both personal and ‘sales offers’ eg Thomson holidays and Easyjet.
    13. Look at hotels’ own web sites for views of the rooms, swimming pool, dining room, lounge, views to the sea or the hills; details of other facilities and guests’ comments.
    14. Maintain my diary using “eLinkUk” hosted service (free-of-charge for single users) as I can link each of the entries for example to my doctor, to my ‘health’ project; or for booking lunch out; similarly I file all important emails (and scanned documents) to the sender (by person and by organisation) and projects (new TV etc).
    15. Look up equipment manuals on-line to save keeping them and then finding the right one; filing purchase and guarantee details, all cross-referenced to suit me.
    16. Maintain my ‘Gluten Free’ blog about restaurants I visit.
    17. maintain my “Future Britain” blog on policies and politics.
    18. Synchronise my mobile phone automatically for contacts and diary entries and therefore to an automatic alarm system on my mobile.
    19.Run an alarm system for birthdays.
    20. Edit and store my photographs.
    21. Keep details of what vegetables I grow in which beds at the allotment; and what seeds I have ready for next year.
    22. Keep details of all CDs, books and DVDs.
    23. Keep details of recipes we find.
    24. Find out about places we are about to visit, including a bird’s eye view from Google Earth; coarse economic information from CIA; detail road map from Google Maps.
    25. Find out the time of the next bus; book train tickets; see what’s on at the cinema;
    26. Use in-line foreign language dictionaries.
    27. Use on-line dictionaries for rhyming words.
    28. Renew my car tax and household insurances.
    29, Create an art gallery for my TV.
    30. Get the weather forecast, from ECMRWF,
    31. Play Patience.
    32. Chase down problems and solutions on new domestic equipment.

I take my Eee PC with me when I travel, (also my Memory stick, my VoIP phone, my camera and mobile phone.) This has Windows XP with Microsoft Works and MS Outlook for email. At home, I link this to the large screen TV with Quadrophonic sound.

I also use an old tower PC running Ubuntu 9.10, linked to my printer / scanner, for Open Office 3.1 with word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software and GIMP photo-editing software. This PC has a new 1360×768 screen plus a 5.1 surround sound system.

So this morning, I’m sitting reading the morning paper, listening to Ackerbilk and on the TV, as a painting, is a beautiful Kandinsky, yesterday it was a Modigliani. I’ve dealt with my morning emails. Within the hour I’m due to work on my allotment, when I’ve finished my coffee. Cheers.

How can we best use Kindles in children’s education?

How can we best use Kindles in children’s education in the UK or even just in Adur?

They cost £111 each, inc Vat. They are monochrome and have no images, just text – loads and loads of text.

Let’s say we (a school) bought twenty of them, who would we give them to or lend them to and how would they use them? If you damage one, presumably then that child would miss out for say three months.

Or children could download the Free Kindle reader software to any PC (possibly not portable) so that those users can download what they want, provided that it’s free (500,000 books.) Could the education broadband facility cope with this, both speed and permissions.

Range of books is from Winnie the Pooh to the complete works of Shakespeare. But they can also be used for ‘white noise’ for very young children.

With six devices per Kindle unit account a group of six six-formers could be allowed a subscription to the Economist, say. They could also download possibly all their academic study books. Amazon are trialling a library service in America, where a book can be lent (electronically) to someone else for two weeks, not available in the UK yet. Then again we could give the six-former groups a budget for them to spend as they will.

What do schools and colleges spend on books each year?

Are there any charitable trusts who could help us?

Does it need to be part fo an overall strategy or is it just a tactic we should just get on with.

Some schools have already started.

As always the full question has to be sub-divided into Who, What, Why, When, Where and How and for each sub-group at the various stages in school.

An auspicious start leading to momentous happenings

“Tomorrows’ Winds”Tomorrows' Winds Cover

No excuse now. Currently in the Best seller List at 5,657th.

Tomorrows’ Winds is now available on-line for only 99p plus Vat.

Readers comments:

“Very imaginative and stimulating, it’s a damned good read. I couldn’t put it down.”

“That was great, when will the next be available?”

“Highly imaginative view into one possible outcome of a highly technological society in the future . Optimistic, good fun , easy to read , amusing little twist at the end. I enjoyed it . Lets have the next one!”

“I felt he could have written a much larger book or even given some of his ideas a book of their own to explore them more fully. I’m now intrigued to see how many new ideas are in his next book.”

just follow the link: http://tinyurl.com/3xghkhm

Download and read Kindle books – no Kindle required. You may need a free of charge Kindle reader for your iPhone, your Windows PC, your Mac, iPad or Android phone. Just click here to download it from Amazon. http://tinyurl.com/2uajty4

If I can do it, then it must be straightforward!

If anyone wants to then I’m prepared to join and support a Kindle Writers and Publishers Club in Brighton and / or on-line.

Happy New Year.

The Englishman’s Life, now on Kindle.

The Englishman’s Life (18,924 words.)
Cliff Jenkins

My perception of the world, presented in popular poetry and prose; fun and frolics; pain and pleasure; sadness and sunshine; with a touch of realism.

It’s the story of one Englishman, who suddenly sat back and said “What have I actually achieved? How did it all happen? Did I have some fun? What happens next? What was life really about? What was the best? Did I do well by my wife and family?”

It’s also a snapshot of England during a period of massive change, from 1940 to 2010 though also looking at the everlasting beauty of England.

From the rationing to a wonderful and varied cuisine; from a 4d (denarius-old pence, from the pounds, shillings and pence days) phone call to today’s Internet; from missionaries to global businesses; from the British empire to Britain on its own; shanks’s pony to spacecraft; from two billion to six billion people.

It also shows a picture of a man having fun with words. Sometimes the ’poetry’ is more important than the meaning and sometimes the meaning is more important.

With lots of personal glimpses – for fun,
from being a young man,
to the start of the Third Phase,

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