Cool tools

by Christine Kling

I have a friend who sometimes helps me with projects on my boat. He’s in the construction business. I remember one time when he was helping me replace a broken rope clutch on my coach roof (that’s one of those jobs that requires two people), and he fussed at me about the quality of my tools.

“I hate cheap tools,” he said, as he tried to turn the nut with a loose, crappy little monkey wrench.

Although the entire locker under my starboard saloon birth is filled with tools, I know that some of them were cheap bargains from Home Depot. Okay, maybe most of them. And I’m certain if I, like him, worked with those tools every single day, I would want better quality tools. but even though I recognize the truth in the saying that cruising is sailing from port to port just to work on the boat, I don’t use any one of those tools but maybe twice a year.

There is, however, a tool I use every single day. That, of course, is my computer. Anyone who knows me knows that I love technology, but most of all, I love all things Apple. I admit it. I am a Mac addict. So it’s really important to me to go for quality on that tool. And though my 4 1/2 year old computer once represented top-notch technology, today it was getting a bit long in the tooth. In fact, that was the longest period I’ve ever gone without buying a new computer.

It started with the letter Q. Back in November when I was sailing in the Caribbean 1500 rally somewhere off Bermuda, I hit the Q key and when I lifted my finger, the key stayed stuck to my fingertip. You never realize how many times you hit the Q key until it becomes a wobbly little thing that continually falls off. I tried a dab of Superglue and that worked for a while, but eventually the key lost all resistance. I could type away for several minutes -click, click, click – until I hit that key and the click changed to a clunk.

Then the speakers stopped producing any sound. Like most cruisers, I like to watch movies on my computer, and though I could still do it with headphones,

The killer blow however came this week when Apple released their new operating system called Mountain Lion, and I discovered that my trusty old computer was too old for the upgrade. Techie that I am, I’d been reading for weeks about all the new features that would be built into this operating system. See, I’m one of those crazy early adopter people, and it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t grab onto this shiny bit of new tech.

So, after cruising Craigslist for several days, I finally bought a second hand but nearly new Macbook Air. One of the coolest things about this machine is that it has a solid-state hard drive. After all these years of pounding to weather and wondering if my hard drive was going to survive inside the boat, I now have a drive that has no moving parts. This new technology is great for boaters. As is the newer battery that will last nearly twice as long as the old one.

But one of the real reasons I was so keen on getting this computer is one of the new features that is built into the operating system. It’s called Dictation and I’m using it to write this blog. That’s right, I’m speaking the words to the computer and they are appearing on the screen. Sure, there have been some fairly pricey speech to text programs that could make this happen, but Dictation is a part of the operating system, so it is available in all applications that use typing to input data. It makes me wonder if 20 years from now kids will think that keyboards are these quaint old things like ringer washing machines, and they’ll shake their heads in wonder that people actually had to push all those keys to form the words that go into books.

We aren’t quite there yet, but I know that if I’m going to have to produce 150,000 words a year for the next two years, I’m going to be hammering on those keys. I’ll need the best quality tools I can get. And the fun part is that they are also way cool.

 

Fair winds!

Christine

 

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