By Martin Jansen, Owner of Jansen-PCINFO
Happy Almost Easter! I’m spending more and more of my computer time on-line these days and a lot of the time is spent on Google related tasks.
I have a Motorola Edge Foldable Android phone, a Lenovo Chromebook for portability, an 10.1 inch Kindle Fire and we use Linux Mint computers running on Mini PCs.
Monday – Email and General Tasks
Of course, I have a Gmail account through which I get all my emails: mail.google.com. This is a daily task for me to read and delete emails. I also spend some time unsubscribing from unwanted emails. Google recently made this a lot easier in their web based email app by supplying an Unsubscribe button as you hover your mouse over the email. I also keep track of my appointments through Google Calendar (calendar.google.com) which I share with Lydia. We schedule appointments and invite each other to the event.
On my HP desktop mini computer I use Mozilla Thunderbird to see all my new emails at once (instead of Google’s tabbed division of Primary, Promotions and Social) for reading and deleting emails. Still the source of my emails is through my Google Account. Like many, I used to have a new.rr.com account, but Spectrum’s web interface was very slow and ineffective with almost no spam filters. I had to call Spectrum to deactivate the old Road Runner email account, but afterwards the amount of spam emails dropped dramatically.
Monday is also the day we receive our song list from the liturgical ministers at church. I can start to prepare my songs in PDF format to put on my Amazon Fire 10 inch tablet.
Tuesday – Library Day
On Tuesdays I volunteer as a Technology Helper at the Appleton Public Library. It’s a two hour shift between 1pm and 3pm. I help with a variety of computer related issues, mostly focused on the best way to use computers to accomplish a task.
When I am not busy helping patrons, I spend my time writing articles like this one in Google Docs. I access Google Docs through drive.google.com. This gives me access to folders and individual files. I navigate to my Jansen-PCINFO folder, then 2024, and create a new Document. After the article is complete I can copy and paste the whole document as a post into my WordPress website: https:/jansen-pcinfo.com.
Wednesday – Home Chores
If you own a home it must be maintained. Wednesday is grocery shopping, bed changing, and taking out the garbage are all weekly tasks. If I have some spare time, like now, I will add a few paragraphs to my articles. I also may work on my music. I use MuseScore to recompose musical scores for practice purposes. I can then upload the scores into Google Drive and share the folder and files with other choir members via Google Groups. I set up a Google Group for each of the church choirs for quick sending of information. Instead of maintaining a list of emails, a single group email is sent to all choir members. Google Groups is great for any organization that wishes to maintain a good list of emails for their members.
Thursday – Another Library Day
This is another morning shift as a Technology Helper. If not busy, I can put some finishing touches on the articles in Google Drive. In the afternoon, we can update our mailing list in Google Sheets. My daughter is getting married in April, so my wife and I engineered the mailings of the “Save the Date” and Wedding Invitations. We have an old Brother QL-500 thermal label printer. I used a concatenate formula in Google Sheets to combine the City, State and Zip Code in one line for the Brother P-Touch label software.
Friday – Photos
Pictures taken on my Motorola phone are automatically backed up to photos.google.com. I have this setup to only backup when WIFI is available and in use. Seeing past photos online is not only fun, but great for business. I take pictures of the computers and devices I wish to sell and use Screen capturing software to downsize the images. This results in cropped images suitable for uploading to Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Next Door.
I add images for my articles mainly through LibreOffice, but if I am working remotely I can do the same thing in Google Drawing. I import a sparkly background .jpeg image and then place transparent .png images on the background. I then take a screen print of images. This is one of my complicated creations with an article on travel tips: Planes, Trains, Automobiles and Bikes.
Saturday – Do what you want
I might sleep in a bit on Saturday. Otherwise I might experiment with some computer related projects. Backups are also important as well as updates to my home network file sharing computer. Other than emails, I might take a break from Google today. I often have Mass on Saturday afternoon. For choir members that means getting dressed at 2:45 pm, leaving at 3:00 PM and arriving for choir practice at 3:15 PM. The Mass is at 4:00 PM.
Sunday – A Day of Rest?
I almost always have at least one choir singing on Sunday. Again, arrive 45 minutes early to practice before Mass. If I have two masses, I bring along music for both. Here my Amazon Fire Tablet is very helpful. My music bag would be twice as large and heavy without the tablet. I use Librera to read the carefully prepared music pdf files. If I am working remotely on my Lenovo Chromebook, I can use the internal SD card or Google Drive to store the files as I work through the music.
In the evening these days, we are transitioning from Lent into Easter by performing with the All Rise! Passion Play (https://www.newpassionplay.org/). It’s a great show focusing on the life and times of Jesus Christ through song and dance. Our directors are also using Google Drive to share music files and documents. It’s a great way to practice music and get information about the show.
Conclusion
Now you have my average week. Much of the work is done online using Google Tools. It is a rich and full life.