Crossing Over

I bet you think I'm going to write something about dying and going to the Great Train Layout in the sky, but that's not what I mean with the title. I'll explain.

This may be long and drawn out, but I want to write it and you can stop reading if it gets boring. I have a 3rd generation iPod Nano which I use for my music. It is only 8GB and it is just about filled . I mentioned this to Anne who has an iPod Nano and an iPod touch, the last generation. She said she doesn't really use it and that I could have it. I said, being generous and kind, that, if she wanted, I would get her a new iPod touch that has a camera in it and can wash the dishes and set the table. She thought that would be nice. Anyway, I took her iPod touch and proceeded to sync my music onto it. I thought that since it is an iPod touch, I would also sync some photos and my contacts and calendar. I did that on my old Nano before it got too crowded. Previously I had used a Mac computer to do that. We're getting to the "crossing over" part. Now I am using a PC (a Windows based machine). I cannot get it to sync my photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery to the iPod Touch, nor will it sync my contacts or calendar. It's supposed to be easy, but there is some funny language in the online instruction manual (they don't give you one with the product anymore) that seems to imply that you should use Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 or later, but it should work using folders on your computer, so it says. Once again, I have learned that, despite what they all tell you and how easy all the commercials make it seem, it is never easy crossing over from one platform (Mac) to another (Windows) or the other way around. Mac stuff all works very well if you stick to Mac stuff, but as soon as you start mucking around with Windows and Mac, things get sticky.

I have been using Steve Jobs' (CEO of Apple) philosophy of technology, or my version of it, which says that before long, everything will be internet based and we won't be using CDs or DVDs. All music, photos, video, etc. will be on a hard drive or on the internet. I believe that he is correct and that this is already happening in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. We are far behind, but we are going in that direction. But, if machines don't talk to each other, how can any of this be accomplished?

I did find a work around. I discovered that when on the iPod Touch, I could go to my pictures on Flickr, click on a picture and it would give me the option to save it. I found this out by accident. I didn't know where it would be saved or why I would want to since the picture is already on Flickr. I clicked save and didn't think anything else of it until I realized that the "saved" pictures were now on my iPod Touch without having to sync anything. You can view all of my Flickr photos by going to the clink (my word for a link that you click) on the right side of this blog. Somewhere there it says "Bill's pictures" or something. If you have any trouble with that, please let me know so I can spend another three or four hours trying to figure it out. I realized that I am almost a year behind in posting pictures to Flickr, so please forgive me. I am trying to get caught up. By the way, Windows makes it very easy to get pictures from Windows Live Photo Gallery to Flickr. I think it's easier than from Apple's iPhoto. I am also in the midst of disassembling and packing my train layout in anticipation of a move to somewhere, sometime in the future. There I am also far behind SOME people who have managed to make a move to a nice warm place just in time to avoid the thirty inches of snow at Christmas time. Sigh!