Plan Travelling to Give a Presentation - lessons learned

I recently gave a slide presentation using a Microsoft PDF at a club venue I know well in Singapore. I had the choice of using a borrowed laptop with a larger screen. Or a smaller laptop which would be lighter to carry.

I chose to usu the larger laptop. The screen would be easier to see if I had to turn it to the audience if I could not connect my laptop with the screen.

Lesson Learned
By the end of the afternoon the laptop failed - no battery power. No connector to the wall socket for mains power. I had the connector which links the laptop to the display screen in the office, and to the screen in the demonstration classroom. But I did not have the power! When using my old Apple machine, the power cable with the square power block was obvious. With the black laptop, just a lot of unfamiliar leads and bit and pieces and cables.   So much to remember and carry! I should have made a checklist of cables and connectors required.

Luckily, I had a print out of all the slides as a reminder.

Feedback
The feedback I got was:

Font Size, Shape and Colour
1 Use a minimum of 18 point font so people in the back row of even a small classroom can read it. I later looked on the internet to research this and found varying recommendations on a website called Quora.

The respondents also discussed which fonts are best for changing from an apple to a Mac system, for dyslexics, which colours are best, less tiring than black and white, yet acceptable and readable for the colour - one suggestion was the blue on yellow or yellow on blue). Sans serif which I prefer apparently makes you read on, whilst serif (with the feet like Times Roman, which I hate - to me it looks old fashioned and confusingly cluttered) apparently leads the eyes along the line of text

Acting Out
2 'We enjoyed the way you acted,' said Teresa.
 'You managed to act out grammar.,' said Trevor.

Acting Singlish
I had demonstrated the English phrase, 'an off day', folding my arms and looking glum. 'Having a day off' - short for 'a day off work' - running towards the door gleefully. Finally, the Singlish phrase 'an off day' which sounds to English speakers like the first (demonstrate glum again) when what they mean is the second (run to the door).

Singing
I demonstrated bring and take. For bringing and bringing back (alliteration!) I sand Bring Back My Bonnie To Me (an old Sottish folk song, well known in the UK, more of a novelty in Asia).

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Storing Travel Brochures and Video CDs In Shoe Boxes With Labels

Problem
I have a stack of brochures from a trip to Italy but they are creating a clutter. They slide off the table onto the floor. I put them in a plastic bag. Disaster. Too many bags. I'll never be able to find them.

 I pack them in a shoe box. Now I have them neat but I still can't find them.

Answers
Shoe Box Labelled with Pen
1 You can write the name Italy on the end of the shoe box in pen. Yes, I do that. It does not look tidy, organised, professional. Besides, the writing is too small and I still can't find it.

I have not taken the time to do what I was advised by a much-moved mother in Rockville, Maryland. She told me, when moving house, label every box on all six sides, the four sides and the top and bottom. That way, however the boxes are stacked, you can sill see the label from every angle.

I could then use a black felt tip pen. It would not look tidy, even if I used a ruler to keep the bottom of letters straight, drew a faint pencil line an inch above, marked the spacing of the letters with dots.

Better to print. I could print out the word Italy in large black type, by enlarging the font to the largest size allowed. But that takes a lot of ink. I then have to fix the flimsy paper onto the box.

I get out a brochure entitled Umbria to read and put it back down on top of the box. The width is just the right size. I could tear off the cover and stick it down.

I don't like to destroy a brochure - even though I often have two copies of brochures. Besides, I don't have time.

I reach for a long elastic band, the sort you get on parcels held together by the postman. (In the USA you would say mail man). You find elastic bands on the ground everywhere, all over the world. I have seen them in Italy and Singapore. Lets over the whole top. Find another brochure.

My first effort was simply to leave the brochure on top of the box, attached with a big rubber band. That worked very well when the shoe box was on a long table.

But sideways on, the original shoe box name on the lid is a distraction.

My next effort was to look for other items to stick on the sides.

You can also make a collage of travel brochures. All from one country, or from several. This works on a small box, a shoe box.

Of course the answer for a DIY or craft enthusiast is to completely cover the box with a holiday theme. Stick on duplicate photos. (I have loads from America in the late 1900s.) Print pictures from the computer, maybe print from my own photos on the laptop or mobile phone.

Or cover a box with Xmas birthday or gift wrapping paper. Add a window in the centre with the word Italy.

Or cover a box in white and draw a freehand sketch. Add large curly calligraphy of the country name. Make six matching boxes from different states of the USA. Or stack boxes for countries in South America, Europe or Asia, Russia or China and satellite countries.

I hate cardboard boxes. yet they are too good and stiff to throw away. They keep dust off the contents. They group things together. They stack neatly.

For more details on Umbria:
www.umbriatourism.it

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share posts.

How do I type Romanian Characters. What do the dots mean?

Problem
How do I type Romanian characters? Do I need them? What do they mean?

Answers

Signs above letters

Aa with a line above Āā would be long. (I hold down the a letter key and tap the number 8 key above.

A with a cup shape above is short. (This is no in the fonts which I am offered.)

Signs below letters
The comma under the s turns it into a SH sound.

Story
I started typing without the characters. However, the spell checker in Duolingo, the free internet language teaching system, keeps stopping me and saying that I am almost right but have forgotten the accents.

When I try the usual system I have learned, of pressing down the key, using the apple system, one or two of those accents are missing.

My next thought was to copy and paste a letter. That would be a nuisance if I have to go out of the screen I am on every time.

If, only if, I succeed in copying all the letters, I can keep all the Romanian letters in a key at the bottom of the page I am typing, then copy the set to the page of my next post.

this is what Wikipedia says:
The Romanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Romanian language. It is a modification of the classical Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters,[1][2] five of which (Ă, Â, Î, Ș, and Ț) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language:

Letter Name
A, a a
Ă, ă ă
Â, â î / î din a
B, b be / bî
C, c ce / cî
D, d de / dî
E, e e
F, f ef / fe / fî
G, g ge / ghe / gî
H, h haș / ha / hî
I, i i
Letter Name
Î, î î / î din i
J, j je / jî
K, k ca / capa
L, l el / le / lî
M, m em / me / mî
N, n en / ne / nî
O, o o
P, p pe / pî
Q, q kü / chiu
R, r er / re / rî
S, s es / se / sî
Letter Name
Ș, ș șe / șî
T, t te / tî
Ț, ț țe / țî
U, u u
V, v ve / vî
W, w dublu ve / dublu vî
X, x ics
Y, y igrec / i grec
Z, z ze / zet / zed / zî
The letters Q (read kü or chiu), W (dublu ve), and Y (igrec or i grec) were formally introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier. They occur only in foreign words and their Romanian derivatives, such as quasar, watt, and yacht. The letter K, although relatively older, is also rarely used and appears only in proper names and international neologisms such as kilogram, broker, karate.[3] These four letters are still perceived as foreign, which explains their usage for stylistic purposes in words such as nomenklatură (normally nomenclatură, meaning "nomenclature", but sometimes spelled with k instead of c if referring to members of the Communist leadership in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries, as Nomenklatura is used in English).[4]

In cases where the word is a direct borrowing having diacritical marks not present in the above alphabet, official spelling tends to favor their use (München, Angoulême etc., as opposed to the use of Istanbul over İstanbul).

FREE SAME SAME words the same in Romanian and English
broker
karate
kilogram
watt
yacht

Tips
http://www.proz.com/forum/romanian/14004-how_can_i_enter_romanian_characters_in_word_with_english_keyboard.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, language teacher.