I've been using MS Office 2000 for the past 22 years and it still does everything I need from Word and Excel. Unfortunately I couldn't install it on my new laptop, so I gave LibreOffice a try and so far I'm completely satisfied.

An iPad Pro like you describe would be over three times the cost of the mini I'm looking at, and I could get a very nice ultra-portable windows machine for that price, enabling me to re-use all of my existing software, so I don't see that as a viable option for me. But thanks for your reply.

On the road image editing would probably consist of culling rejects and cropping. Not much more than that. I'm glad to hear there may be some way to connect an external hard drive. I'll check into it.

Considering getting a 2021 Apple iPad Mini (Wi-Fi, 256GB) from Amazon for $549.99. I've always been a Windows guy, so I'm a little leary of getting into the Apple universe, but thinking of dipping a toe in. My biggest concern is the limited internal storage, and my understanding that you cannot connect an external hard drive. I’d like to be able to use this to view, store, and possibly do some minor editing of pics when I'm traveling without my laptop or internet access (so cloud storage is not a solution), so this limit may be a deal-killer. Any comments and advice are welcome.

Thanks to all of you for the advice. I'll check out the videos, but I like to have a reference book as well. I've purchased the Alexander White book

I just bought this camera, and will be receiving it soon. From past experience, the manufacturer's manual is usually good for reference but crap for learning to use the new camera. Any recommendations for a good book to learn the camera's operation from?

You have to have purchased at least $30 of ink or toner at Staples within the previous 180 days, or you receive no credit.

We tend to be photocentric here, being photographers, and perhaps miss the big picture. Future generations will value our pictures far more if they understand why we value them. Why is this picture important? Why did you want to take it? What does it say to you? What feelings does it evoke in you?

I'm a big proponent for putting pictures into albums, with plenty of text to go with them. Particularly if the pictures are intended to tell a story, like a vacation or important family event, or to record our family history. I've found I can simply insert pictures into a Word document and create an album with as little or as much text as I want, and as many pictures and pages as I want. I can arrange and re-arrange to my heart's content. When satisfied with the results, I can print the Word document as a PDF file and email it to friends and family. The end result is an album made the way I want, produced and distributed at zero cost.

After printing and distributing the PDF, I keep the Word document as well. Often one of the recipients will get back to me with some story that one of the pictures has reminded them of. It's simple to edit the album to incorporate their recollections as well. The very best family albums are a collaboration, with all the family sharing their memories of their ancestors.

Cameras are never allowed once the performance has started, and they WILL be confiscated if used.

Forget checks, including electronic billpayer services from your bank. Comcast automatically charges my monthly bill to my credit card, and I earn a 2% rebate from the card issuer. Then the credit card issuer automatically debits my bank account the following month. No writing checks, no postage, a rebate, and 1-2 month float before the money leaves my bank account.

The first thing any bank does these days is scan your check. They're all processed digitally.

I've been on at least a half dozen Caribbean cruises, a cruise in Alaska, Galapagos, the Baltic, and a Viking river cruise on the Rhine. I loved every one of them, and thought the Viking cruise was spectacular. I will definitely be doing more Viking cruises once the pandemic is behind us, but for now a cruise is off the table for me.

Same here.

The only complication would be if you use the organizer. Once you've used 2022 to update your organizer database, I don't think you can turn it back into a database that would be usable with the 2014 version. That may or may not be a concern for you. I don't personally use the organizer, just the editor. I'm currently using the 2019 version of Photoshop Elements - I've typically upgraded only every 4-5 years - and found it to be quite a bit more useful than the version I'd previously been using. I never had any reason to go back and use the previous version, so I've uninstalled it and don't remember now exactly which version it was. I'd recommend updating, as there have been a lot of improvements since 2014, but you can prove it to yourself by downloading the free trial version directly from Adobe and use it for 30 days. Just don't update your organizer until you decide whether you intend to purchase the upgrade.