Pumpkin made a list of stuff she’d like to have for her birthday. It was a loooooong list, and it included several expensive items. She got two of them, a microscope and a telescope, because I found a ridiculously awesome deal on them. But now all I’ve been hearing about is how much she’d like to have one of the other expensive items on that list for Christmas: an iPod Touch.
She has a PSP, and it does just about everything an iPod Touch can do, except it doesn’t have a touch screen. I know you can’t put apps on it, but I don’t think she really gives a flip about anything but the game apps. And games are what a PSP does best.
I’ve explained this to her, but she just thinks the whole touch screen thing is so cool. So I’m trying to come up with a less expensive compromise. I haven’t really found a viable alternative to an iPod Touch, but I’ve run across some killer deals on tablet PCs. Hmm…
I’m thinking about getting her one. She’s mentioned in passing that she’d like to have an iPad, and an Android tablet is very similar as far as what it can do, but much less expensive. The biggest difference between a tablet and an iPod as I understand it (other than the OS) is that the tablet is larger. And she’d probably like having a larger screen.
If anybody knows more about this stuff than I do (yes, I’m hopelessly behind the times on these technological wonders), please fill me in!
Long time no blog, huh?
Don’t worry, I haven’t slipped into another deep depression, and nobody has collected a whole life insurance policy on me (obviously). I just haven’t gotten around to blogging much. I’ve had a lot on my plate, and it just kind of fell by the wayside. You know how it goes.
I promised an update on my laptop, so here goes: I like it. It’s not as fast as my desktop, but it gets the job done. And I’ve had no serious issues with it. I think it was a good deal for the money. My only concern is that I recently found out that the screen often goes out prematurely on the model I purchased. But if it goes out within a year it will be covered by the warranty, and I hope to be able to buy a brand spanking new one soon after that. So maybe it won’t be an issue.
I should be writing some articles right now, but I can’t seem to get motivated today. I’m not pushing a deadline, so I guess that’s why. I still need to work on staying motivated when I’m not under pressure. But I can’t complain too much – this time last year I couldn’t even stay motivated when I was under pressure. I guess the medication is doing its thing to a certain degree. I’m not interested in upping my dose or adding more meds, so I’m hoping some lifestyle changes will get me where I need to be. More on that later.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a killer deal on a netbook on eBay. I’ve been in the market for a laptop for some time, and I thought this might be a good starter. I planned to use it for a while, then pass it on to Pumpkin when I was able to afford something more powerful. So I applied for Bill Me Later, was accepted, and placed my order.
The netbook came a few days later, but it turned out to be a lemon. It had the wrong operating system, and the sound and internet didn’t work. So it’s going back for a refund. Meanwhile, I started looking for other laptop deals. I found one I liked and tried to order it, but I couldn’t because it would have put me a few dollars over my BML credit limit.
I was beginning to think I would have to either wait for my refund or try selling gold jewelry at goldfellow.com to raise the money to buy another one. But then I finally found a deal that looked like a winner. It was an older Dell laptop, but it was refurbished and had everything I would need in a laptop. So I decided to order it. It comes with a 90-day warranty, and I also purchased a separate extended warranty, so maybe there won’t be any buyer’s remorse this time.
It should be here next week. I’ll let you know things go with it!
Why do printer ink cartridges have to be so darned expensive? I know they make the refillable ones now, and they’re somewhat cheaper, but I prefer to use the ones from the printer manufacturer. Partly because I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about refilling gone wrong, and partly because I want to be able to just pop in a cartridge and go.
There are websites and stores that sell discount diet pills and designer clothes at affordable prices. Why doesn’t anybody sell inexpensive ink cartridges? I’m sure there are a million reasons, but I suppose they’re just over my head. I finally broke down and bought a color cartridge for my printer so I could print out some tax forms. But I’m going to make that thing last as long as possible, that’s for sure!
After much research, I finally found a computer that appears to have the power I need that was within my meager budget. I would have liked to have gotten a quad-core, but Hubby would have pitched a fit if I had spent that much on one. So I ended up ordering this model from eMachines.
I hope it will be a good one. I was a bit apprehensive about buying a low-end computer, but I didn’t have much choice if I wanted a decent processor and enough memory. And I looked up all the reviews I could find on eMachines, and they were all good.
They offer toll free tech support, which is a good thing. I hope I won’t need it, but you never can tell.
According to the UPS website, it should be here tomorrow. I’ll keep y’all posted.
I’ve been having a ridiculous amount of computer problems. I had a virus scare yesterday, because my computer went haywire when I booted it up. A window popped up saying that I couldn’t download that file because of security settings, but I wasn’t trying to download a file. Then my computer decided that it would be prudent to shut down, purportedly for some totally unrelated reason.
I had a ton of work to do, but I restarted, pulled the plug on my DSL and started a virus scan. It takes about 2 1/2 hours on this beast, so I cleaned house while I waited. But AVG didn’t find anything.
So I set about checking all of the processes that were running, looking up any unfamiliar ones. Nothing out of the ordinary. I finally decided that it must have been some program I had blocked because it froze up my computer trying to update itself, because the computer was acting normal (considering) by then. And it’s been known to pull stunts like shutting down every now and then, and it had been a while since it had done so.
There are times when I miss my old Commodore 64. Remember those? Man, were they ever slow. But that was par for the course back then, so although it was a bit annoying, I got over it. You could even get primitive tape drives for them that used audio cassettes! I never had one, but from what I hear they were slow as the dickens too.
Of course I had my share of frustrations out of old Commodore too. Sometimes I would accidentally hit the wrong key, and it would tell me to “press play on tape.” I couldn’t do that because I had no tape drive, but it wouldn’t let me do anything else. So I would have to restart, and if I was trying to play programmer (which I often did in my younger days), I would lose everything I had done so far. But at least it didn’t take long to boot up and get started again.
I guess I should be grateful that computers are easier to use and capable of doing more today. And if I had one that was worth a hoot, I would.
Cell phone reception is seriously spotty here in the mountains. We’re very fortunate to get a good signal where we’re living now. I had the long distance cut off because we get free long distance with our plans, and we have enough rollover minutes to talk until doomsday.
It’s kind of ironic. Rural areas are where one needs a cell phone the most, in my opinion anyway. I guess if I was in a really bad neighborhood in the city I’d want one in case I had car trouble or something, but otherwise you can get to a phone pretty easily. But breaking down on one of these isolated back roads can be pretty scary. Yet in the places you need them the most, it seems that there’s no signal.
I remember one year when my mom and brother and his family came down for Pumpkin’s birthday. I told them to call if they needed further directions. But they ended up being a half hour or so late. They said they missed a turn and had trouble getting back on track. When I asked why they didn’t call one of us, Bro said they hadn’t gotten a signal on their fancy unlocked cell phones the whole way down here. They couldn’t even get one at the park where we were, yet our phones had good signals.
Maybe it has to do with the network or something. I can pick up intermittently around here, but once I get across the state line when I’m going up to visit them, it’s all over but the crying until I’m almost there. But I can pick up in town up there. I wonder why?
My computer has reached new heights of slowness. It’s absolutely driving me crazy, but there’s no money in the budget for a new one (not even that killer laptop deal that’s mine for the taking). So I’m stuck with it for now.
If there’s anyone more technically inclined than me reading this (I’m sure there is), maybe you can help me out with something. I have my writing files in a folder on my desktop with subfolders for each of my clients. I create a subfolder in the client’s folder for each assignment, which consists of anywhere from one to 30 articles (usually 10 or 15). When I’m done with the assignment, I right click on its folder, go to “send to”, and click “zipped folder” to create a compressed folder to send to the client.
Problem is, every time I do this, my computer slows down to a crawl. When I open the client’s folder, it’s like it already knows what I’m going to do. All the icons disappear from my desktop, sometimes the folder window goes blank, and it takes forever for it to straighten back up. I’m talking sometimes 10 to 15 minutes. It’s not exactly frozen because I can move my mouse, and can sometimes get as far as right-clicking the assignment folder and having the menu pop up. But when I point to “send to”, it just sits there, icons popping back up and reappearing, and that’s it. When it gets done with its little dance, I finally get the “send to” sub-menu, and I can click on “zipped folder” and it’s done within a few seconds.
I thought maybe the folders were too full, so I went through and removed all of the old unzipped subfolders that I didn’t need any more. That didn’t help a bit. I’ve also tried defragmenting, to no avail. Anybody have a clue what could be going on and how to fix it? I would be extremely grateful for any help on this, because it’s affecting my productivity.
Hubby and I recently got new cellphones. Not really because we had the money lying around, but because our old ones both quit working. Our service provider happened to have a great deal on Razrs at the time, so that’s what we got. And I must admit they’re pretty sweet.
They’re not the new Razr 2s, but refurbished Razr V3Cs. We don’t require the latest and greatest of everything, so they’ve got plenty of features to keep us happy. But I still haven’t gotten them completely figured out yet. I don’t know if you can add flash memory to store more ringtones and pictures and stuff or not. And although someone told Hubby that you can use voice recordings you do on the phone as ringtones, I haven’t figured out any way to do that. Anybody know how, or if it’s even possible?
I’m not crazy about their reception, but this is the mountains and it’s hard to really get a good signal in a lot of places. Still, Hubby has called me from the same location on someone else’s phone and it has picked up a zillion times better. But that’s about the only real beef I have about them. They’re pretty, have just the right amount of bells and whistles for us, and the price was right.
At my high school prom, they gave away those little plastic keychains that you can put a wallet-sized photo in. They were quite nice, with the school name and date of the prom on them. My keys went on mine as soon as I got my prom pics back, and they stayed on it until my high school sweetheart and I parted ways. I guess I could have put a different picture in it, but that logo was still there and I wasn’t interested in even seeing that every time I got ready to leave the house.
Technology has given “photo keychain” a whole new meaning. Now you don’t have to cut a picture and put it in your keychain. All you have to do is hook it up to your computer and upload it. And you can put tons of them on there, not just one. I’d love to have one!
Today’s Gizmos, Gadgets and Tech and WholesaleKeychain.com have teamed up to give away three digital photo keychains, complete with engraving. Wholesalekeychain.com has a great selection of automotive and sports keychains, as well as a selection of digital photo keychains. Other than the photo ones, my favorite would have to be the Mach 1 Mustang. Now if I just had a Mach 1 Mustang to go with it, I would order one. 
Head on over to Today’s Gizmos, Gadgets and Tech and enter to win. They make great gifts!
