Down loading/uploading, or whatever you call it, programs to children's educational games!
Last Tuesday my younger boy rang us just as we were leaving the house to go out to them for childminding. "Can you bring your laptop dad? I'll tell you all about it when you get here". The problem is the young master (3, coming on 4, years old) was give a sort of electronic educational book thingy for christmas by his auntie (well not really his auntie, more a very close family friend, but we all call her auntie, you understand I'm sure) - it has interactive pages with a pointer which lets you select shapes, colours, letters, etc, etc. and speaks back to you when you touch with the pointer. When this is mastered you can buy more advanced add on books and, of course, auntie bought the whole package all in one.
I don't think the wee lad has done more than opened the big book and listened to the tunes. A week or so ago, Auntie asked whether he was using the learning package and was he enjoying it? Who knows why, but my boy said "oh yes, he loves it" or something to that effect. Then, later when she'd gone, he thought he'd better sit down with it and learn how it worked so he could show the wee lad how to use it as Auntie is sure to quiz him at some time. Didn't take him long to discover that the book alone only works at a very basic level and it needs the add on books to properly "wake it up". Trouble is the basic book is actually a mini computer which has to be programmed via the internet to work with each add on book. To do this you have to log onto the manufacturer's website, create an account and download the relevant program for each book. He managed to download the basic website but couldn't get any further. Looking on line there are lots of folk having problems trying to do this and some are saying they think it's because they're laptops are running old operating systems - which his does. Mine runs windows 10 which was why he wanted to try mine.
So we spent nearly two hours trying to sort it all out using mine but, although logging in and creating an account and downloading the programming to my laptop we just couldn't get the "intelligent" book and my laptop to "speak" to each other. In the end just gave up.
Then I remembered our neighbour, who used to work for Dell in security and now is head of cyber security at one of Edinburgh's universities, I bet he could sort this out! So I took the whole shebang home with us and we knocked on his door yesterday. I'd love to he said, it'll be an entertainment, bit like someone doing a crossword in their spare time!
Roughly two hours later he came to our door with all the stuff, intelligent book, add on books, and leads and said "get your laptop out then" Well, to dut a long story short, we downloaded the software, just as I'd previously done, created an account, as I'd previously done and downloaded the separate programs for the books we have, Then he handed me a black connecting lead, USB on one end and Micro/mini USB on the other and told me to plug my laptop in at one end - USB and the intelligent book at the other - mini USB. But that's not the lead that came with it, said I, it was a white one. Just press enter he said and whizz, hey presto, within seconds the programs were uploaded to the book!
That was the problem he said. The white lead is suitable for USB charging only, it can't transfer data! The black lead I gave you can do both. Well, I never even knew there were different types! Here they are:
Apart from the colour, can you tell the difference? He stuck the label on by the way. His opinion is my boy has got the original white lead mixed up with a similar looking white lead from another device and that the white lead does not in fact belong to the Intelligent book at all!
So there we are, all working fine now so my boy can lie his head off to Auntie if he so wishes. All that agro though simply because the lead was the wrong one. How would you know? even took our friendly neighbour a couple of hours to sus it out, I'd have never got there. By the way, he said he really enjoyed the challenge as it was very different to the challenges he normally works with and point blank refused the expensive bottle of wine we offered him saying, "If I take that I'll feel I can't come and ask you something about the car".
