Technology!

I’m currently going over the copy edits on my next Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery.

All submissions and edits used to be done strictly on paper. Now, they’re mostly electronic, which is faster and less expensive and works great! The copy edits use what used to be called “redlining” in my earlier days as an attorney. Each time a contract was changed by one negotiating side or the other, that attorney would make marks in red ink showing what was deleted or added.

Now, changes are done on computers in different colors and balloons that appear in the drafts that arrived in my e-mail. One color shows the editor’s changes and questions, another the copy editor’s, and a third shows my responses and changes. It’s really easy this way.

Mostly. I’ve found that the size of the type is small enough that even I, who can read stuff that’s quite small, have to strain to see it, and I can’t play around with it on the computer to enlarge it for easier reading. Fortunately, I have a pair of glasses that works well for this use.

I’m wondering, though, what other technological wonders I might be missing. The Consumer Electronics Show is in Las Vegas this week, and I might have been able to find some new gadgetry to look forward to there--something even more exciting than tracking changes. My husband and I have attended in the past, and it’s amazing! I’m sure it would be even more amazing to someone who actually understood what all that technology was about.

Since my passion is pets, I decided to virtually visit the CES show, so I went to its website and searched for “pet products.” What came up included iPod docking stations shaped like frogs, including a music decoding system for pet dancing (whatever that is); a number of links to different kind of virtual mouse products--and as anyone these days who uses a computer knows, that kind of mouse isn’t either a pet or any other kind of rodent; and not much else on point. A search for “animal” brought up animation, and a warning that no live animals are allowed in any of the CES exhibits. A “dog” search located lunch--lots of references to hot dogs. And “cat” is apparently an abbreviation for things I don’t purport to understand--maybe a reference to catalog numbers.

I’m sure there are oodles of things being displayed that I’d adore using... someday. Once I figure out what they are and why they’re indispensable.

Even so, it’s probably just as well that I’m at home editing now and not at CES. Is anyone out there a technology fan who’s attending, or would like to attend, the Consumer Electronics Show? What new gadget would you recommend?