Learning by laptop

For the past two summers, between contracts, I've learned new programs, usually because a prospective client required that I do so. I've a fair number of software applications under my belt, so I'm usually more than game to try my hand at a new technology.

Learning by laptop, usually while on the road, is quite different from a style I might have used years ago. My Toshiba weighs a tonne, which means I'm reluctant to lug textbooks along in addition to clothes, toiletries, and shoes. (Fortunately my daughter is old enough now to haul her own stuff.) So now I learn by tinkering and only resort to the manual, usually a pdf document, when I run into trouble.

This method of learning, and also of travelling, begs the question: "Will someday manuals, textbooks, even fiction, exist only as files accessible on one's computer, in much the same way that music is now easily accessible from a laptop or Ipod/MP3 player?"

I haven't yet cottoned on to reading ebooks — after all, I spend enough time as it is staring bleary-eyed at a computer screen — but I see the advantages of downloading a dozen novels to my laptop before embarking on a vacation. Think of the luggage weight to be saved!

Snuggled up in bed at home, however, nothing beats a paperback.

Although one mustn't forget the husband, of course.