new computer!

We gave up on the old laptop. Yesterday, I went to turn it on in the evening and couldn't even boot it up in safe mode. I'm in a bit of a panic because there are things on there that I didn 't back up, but a friend has loaned me a wire/plug-in contraption that we can (I hope) plug the hard drive into to get all my stuff and all the pictures and so on and so forth.

And most of the book that I spent this whole month writing, that's been flying out of my head and onto the screen? I didn't back it all up. Yeah, I hope this transfer doohickey works...

I'm wondering how I'm going to get my e-books off of there. I'm hoping I can re-download them, but not sure if it will let me put them all on a second computer. In good news: all my paperback and hardback books are over there on the shelf, perfectly safe. I guess in case of a house fire, it would be harder to replace them, but in case of a house fire, we'd be replacing the computer and e-reader anyway.

So now I have to get used to teeny-tiny writing on a giant screen again, instead of enormous writing and blue spots and scrolling back and forth and up and down constantly to read things.

I wrote 2500-ish words anyway today, writing the big fight scene and some of the aftermath. Still a couple of chapters left to go and that's it for a rough draft. Assuming I can retrieve it. Lordy, there's that nausea again. When did I start this thing?

revision, revision, revision, books, kids, and other stuff

My class started yesterday!

I'm taking Lani Diane Rich's StoryWonk Revision class. She's an excellent writer and has been running these classes for a while - and I need all the help I can get with editing for plot, structure, and story.

So first week, we have to read the story without editing (hard to do, so I have made it a pdf and put it on my eReader) and write all the scenes on note cards, then identify the major turning points and where the Acts are (ideally 4 acts). It doesn't sound like too much, but, *ulp*

I'm still waiting for the critique of 10 pages that I won in the raffle at a day-long writer's conference I went to a couple of months ago. I need to email.

PLUS, I got a CC of the email to Joanna Bourne, whose 10 page critique I won in the Novak diabetes auction, informing her that I am the winner, so I need to get in touch with her and decide if I want the same 10 pages critiqued or a different 10.

And my laptop is ailing and is in the laptop hospital. I might just be dirty and overheating, might need a new video card. We should have news today, I hope. Definitely slowing me down on writing and revision, though...

And yesterday, I was reading one of the huge number of books I got at the library book sale (half price day on Saturday as I was helping at the sale and then I helped pack up the leftovers). I was wandering around the house with it and kept picking it up and thinking, "Hey, I already read this part. How in the world did I manage to put the bookmark in the wrong spot?" until I finally noticed that I had two of them - one from the sale and one from the library.

I did get some other doubles of things already on my shelf so wasted a whole - whoooo - $2.33 or something. I will either donate them back to the library for the next sale or else sell them at the used book store for more than I paid for them. (method to my madness).

DS1, my 10 year old, 4th grader, went to camp for the next two nights. My ickle baby boy! Strangely, there were nine kids out of the two classes (43 kids, according to ds1) who are not going along. One I know really didn't want to go and another his parents were worried about less-than-optimal supervision. I just remember having loads of fun at camp with my school (though sometimes being homesick) and I helped him pack and waved bye-bye. So we won't see him again until Wednesday, which isn't all that far away. And who knows? They're panning for gold up by Sutter's Mill, so he might end up making us all rich (hahahahaha).

DS2 got his thumb slammed in the hinge side of the bathroom door yesterday. DS1 was just closing the door - a bit too hard because DS2 was right there, so he's not completely blameless, but it wasn't one of their running and slamming times - and he somehow got his right thumb in the hinge. I really don't know how his right hand was in the hinge area, which is on the left side of the door, but there it was. I just heard the thump and the scream. So his thumb is swollen and achy and bruised around the knuckle, but he can move it, though not all the way, so I'm trying to decide if he needs an X-ray.

DD is potty training. It's going well. Mostly. Accident on the floor yesterday, but generally, if she has her diaper off, she remembers to use the potty without too much prompting. I'm not totally comfortable with her running around nakey-bop with older brothers, but that's more in my head than in theirs.

So that was our weekend :)

Sony 505 eReader review - part deux

So. The test drive of my Sony reader 505 is almost over. Do I want to keep it for my very own?

No. Yes. Maybe.

Pros:
Can carry a whole stack of books in one, slim package
Can stay up all night reading without getting up to go get another book (not that I should – I have to get my kids to school in the morning)
Can get classic, out-of-print, out-of-copyright books free from the Gutenberg Project, etc
There are offers and bargains out there for free or cheap eBooks – generally a few months old from Harlequin to a few years old from other publishers

Cons:
The reader itself is expensive
EBooks are usually full price. Why are they not cheaper than hard copies that have to be printed and shipped?
I can get new releases and older books from the library for free or from the used book store for $4
My library's ebook selection is pitiful and random and half are in an incompatible format.
If a book really stinks, I can't get $2 from the used book store for it or donate it to the library friends book sale for a small tax deduction
I can't share books with friends and family
How long before this technology is obsolete? Will I still be reading my e-Books in 20 or 30 years, as I am my paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice (that I got for 50 cents used) or my ancient Jane Eyre (hardback from my grandparents' bookshelf)?

To be honest, I haven't touched the eReader in a couple of weeks now. No, wait, I downloaded a book from the library and installed it about a week ago, but haven't turned it on since then.

Of course, if I knew for sure that I was keeping the Reader, I would probably buy more books. The ones I have bought are on my hard drive in .pdf format so I can read them again no matter what – until my computer crashes. I might also mess around with cracking the DRM on incompatible formats.

When will I get one?
When the price of the reader comes down – I don't know, to $50? $100?
When I have more selection – especially new releases – from the library, my primary source of reading materials
When I feel that I won't lose access to my eBooks because they decided to change the software and my keeper shelf will just zap away into the ether.


Now just wait a minute!
Screeeeech!

I sent this review in and the same day, SB Sarah said we can buy our eReaders for $125.

So I am back to square one. Keep it? Don’t keep it? What do you think?

First impressions of Sony Reader

Mine got here yesterday (a 505) and DH had my laptop to meet with a client. Our Mac is the only computer with a compatible port that I can reach (there's one on DH's work computer, probably, but it's lost in a tangle of wires and dust) so I charged it up on the Mac. Then he got home, but our wifi isn't working and my kids had the cord I use plugged into the Mac so they could watch old Transformers cartoons on YouTube, so I could only transfer stuff I already had on my laptop.

I saved my work-in-progress (WIP) as a pdf file and transferred that, too. Since we went for a playdate at my beta-reader-friend's house (her sons are the same ages as mine), I showed it to her and had her read the intro that I had changed (and more and more I keep thinking I need to take it out completely. It's very prologue-y. And ooooh I have an idea for it (quick jotting things down...)) But anyway.

So yesterday and so far today, I have only uploaded my book and a couple of free Harlequin books that I had already put on my laptop. Once I went back and read the instructions (and I didn't like the fold out format of the instruction sheet, so got most of my answers from the reader computer program - oh, which I had already installed from the Internet), it made more sense, but they still were a bit vague, I thought.

I read one of the Hqn books last night while getting the baby to sleep. When magnified one click, one page almost fits on a screen, but sometimes there are some orphan lines on the next screen and I have to click again 2 seconds later. It would be nice if it could figure that out and go from one screen to the next, but it is just a pdf reader and reads a page. Oh, and it messes up the formatting quite a bit, especially in dialogue. There were a couple of places that I had to click through the magnifications (I know it's only 3 sizes, but wouldn't it be nice if there were a zoom out button, too?) to get back to the original, small size just so I could see who said what.

It is a bit dim in the light of one lamp while the baby is falling asleep, but generally it has been all right. The reason I don't like reading on computer screens for too long at a time is the backlight. I'm glad to hear from others that it is visible in bright light, it doesn't just disappear like cell phones screens usually do.

It's going to take some getting used to the blinking when going from one page to the next. I read quickly and am used to just zooming on, but I have to give it a couple of seconds which is throwing me off. Obviously, that shouldn't be insurmountable!

I'm still pretty paranoid that I'm going to drop or leave it where the baby can get and she's going to hurl it across the room.

Right, all that and I haven't even downloaded anything new from the Net for it, have I? Well, once I have, I'll write a review for Sarah at the smart bitches :)

GAH!

This laptop is about 15 months old and apparently the two thumb drive ports (there's a real name for them...) on the left have given up the ghost. DH got me a cordless mouse for Christmas and it was plugged in over there and one day just didn't work. Luckily, there's a port on the right, too, but just now I had to take out the mouse thingy so I could plug in my thumb drive and back up my work.

More facebook people (AKA out of the woodwork)

I managed to link to a friend of mine from high school, and then to her brother who was also sort of a friend... and from them to a whole slew of people a couple of years younger than me from high school that I haven't heard from in ages and ages and ages.

And dude! A goatee, shaved head and massive tattoos? On him? Well, OK, it's not that surprising because by the time he was a sophomore and they moved away, he was already rebelling. And my mom will fall over when I tell her who I'm talking about. Such a nice boy.

So hey, a whole new level of facebook :)

an eye rolling good time

I had to make DS1 take his eyes off the online flower fairy game long enough to tell me what he wanted on his sandwich. it was harder than I thought it would be, to be honest.

An entire flipping year later

And i still don't really have control of the touch pad mouse thingy on my computer. OK, so I haven't used it all that much this year, but you'd think I'd be able to scroll at will? Nope, the mouse goes all over, the screen either doesn't scroll or I highlight everything and accidentally delete it, or it jumps all the way to the end instead of scrolling down as I read. Then there's the problem that it's overly sensitive and clicks in places and on things basically at random. if the pointer is hovering over it, it will decide to click away, even when I'm nowhere near touching the mouse thingy. There's a way to turn it off for those of us who drag our hands in front of the keyboard, but then I forget that i turned it off and can't find my pointer.

And I have a hard time holding down the shift key long enough to capitalize words.

But hey, even if if 90% of the stuff and 11 months of the year, DH uses the computer far more than I do (or the boys are playing Crazy Machines 2 on it), it's my computer. And If I would just unplug the thing from the internet, I'd get a lot more done....

NaNo 10 K!

Yessssss! 10,700+

I did about 1 K this morning and then DH stole my computer (the laptop) to do a presentation at a lunch, so I uploaded all I've written to a thumb drive (Dh says it's my thumb drive, but I only vaguely remember him telling me that before and most of what was already on there was his stuff. I digress.) and waved it goodbye.

I've been doing a little sideline work. I made a time line so that I knew when everyone was born and their parents died and so on.

I looked up exactly when teh Franco-Prussian War was (1870-71) so that I wouldn't have the heroine going on her honeymoon to Paris in the middle of it. I got off track and read about the kingdom of Wurttemberg and the chateau des ducs de Wurttemberg, which is in Dh's hometown in France.

I looked up when Darwin published what.

And I went to check the mail and found this month's rent check returned to us because it didn't have a stamp.

Then I made a huge mistake and decided to take the candles out of the jack o'lanterns and found an inch of rain and various slugs, alive and floating around dead in the two i looked in. pumpkins are to proceed directly to green waste, candles still inside, when i can go out without isabelle.

Oh, and I filled out my ballot so I can zip through the real one this afternoon. I love that the people of California can vote directly on laws, but other than the big religio-political-hysterical laws, I really don't know as much as I should about the 12 propositions. Do I vote for everything that looks "green" or are the measures really as badly written and as much of a money grab as the detractors say? And why do I get the feeling that most people don't even read the election thing the state sent with the explanations and pros, cons, and rebuttals?

One more step into the new millenium

I joined Facebook a while ago because someone had a picture up on there or something.

So yesterday I got an email from facebook saying that a high school classmate had asked to friend me. (Really? Him? He was one of the cool kids. I guess he looked through everyone signed up from our class and thought he recognized my name?) Anyway, I started searching around and added a picture (the one of my haircut and my baby) and did a couple quizzes and looked through my friends' friends and sent requests to the people I know, flipped through people from various graduating classes (and omigoodness doesn't Lindsay A. look grown up? Much more than I do, I can tell you that), etc etc.

So if you're on facebook, be my fwend, pwease?

Not that I plan to use it a lot, since my life already contains so many time sinks that I don't get much done. I should be sewing buttons on right now while waiting for dinner to cook and the boys to come home from swimming.

Ribbit ribbit crooooak

Woke up late with headache and itchy throat and stuffy nose. Didn't notice until the kids got up long after that my voice is practically basso profundo with a definite rasp. I have to go to work in a couple of hours, so this could be interesting for being chatty and helpful, which are already a stretch at times for an introvert.

Supposed to be doing a one hour writing sprint. Kids just started playing Putt-Putt Balloon-O-Rama and it tends to get noisy.

I actually prefer the other Putt-Putt games, along with the Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam and Spy Fox. They're adventure games for kids where you have to find certain things, which often means finding something seemingly unrelated and trading it for what you do need. Kind of a cartoon visual dungeons and dragons/MUD with happy, cheerful characters. For kids.

So there's my Christmas recommendation for anyone with kids between oh, about 4 and 7 or 8 and a computer.

Christmas comes early!

DH was out a conference all day and came home just as we were sitting down to dinner. I wasn't even sure he was coming home at all tonight, since he was pretty vague about it all. Anyway, I tossed a few more chicken strips in the frying pan so we all could eat.

But before that, he called me out to the garage to make me look in the trunk. He got me a laptop! A brand spankin' new one! I just wanted something smallish and cheapish, but this one has some bells and whistles that I might never use. Scratch that: I WILL never use. AND I can watch TV on it - it has an antenna that plugs in.

So Christmas is already here at our house. But I can't actually do anything at all on it until it's had a few hours on the Internet, downloading updates and DH installs the freeware Office software. Which makes it DH's job for the moment.

The whole idea, though, is that I can play games on it and watch TV when I have the baby and am lounging in bed all day. Oh, wait. I am supposed to be writing novels on it. That, too. No more dinky notepad and typing it in later. I am techno-woman, hear me roar!

Until I actually have to, y'know, plug it into the Internet or get new software or move my writing from it to another computer. Then I need DH.

Thank you, Santa :)

This blog is rated G

Not sure how. Don't I sometimes at least discuss PG subjects? Hmm. Maybe not.

(Thanks Liza Lee)

Odd computer game question

It seemed that our version of Spy Fox and Dry Cereal sounded more British than when we played the demo.

Now the kids are playing the demo of a Pajama Sam game from the same CD and he has a very different voice than we are used to hearing.

I wonder if it's a computer setting or we got the British CD? Anyone know?

yep

Your Blogging Type Is the Private Performer

Your blog is your stage - with your visitors your adoring fans. At least, that's how you write with your witty one liners. And while you like attention, you value your privacy. You're likely to have an anonymous blog - or turn off comments.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bookmarks!

Gone!

*sob*

Sickness

DS2 doesn't have school on Tuesdays anyway, but I also have DS1 home for the second day in a row. They both have pink eye and DS1 has a slight fever and a horrible horrible stuffed up/runny nose. I'm trying to judge if the eyes will clear up on their own or if I should book a double visit to the doctor to get drops. Sigh.

I'm feeling pretty ick, too. DH was working at home yesterday and so in the middle of the afternoon, I took a shower and then lay down to read for a bit. Oh, about 10 pages later, I conked out. I woke up a few times (especially when DH woke me at about 5:30, freaking because he thought I was supposed to go to work), but basically slept until 7:30 - missing book group (The Myth of You and Me), which I was looking forward to. We ate and I went to bed at about 10 with no problem going back to sleep.

A bit later:

Well, big surprise, the doctor said they have pink eye and gave a prescription. $30 each for the doctor's visit, which took the time of one visit and then $24-something for the eye drops. Dang insurance doesn't cover much of anything. I put drops in my eyes first to show that they won't kill you (and because my eyes have been itching like crazy - possibly psychosomatic). DS2 was uncomfortable but fine. DS1 was freaked out and cried a little afterwards. Ah, the highly sensitive child who takes after me.

In better news, I've done 3 of the 10 rows in my blue and white quilt. I'm thinking of tossing in a few bits of yellow and maybe other colors, too. Probably just some yellow from the same collection so it doesn't get out of hand. Pictures to be added at a time when the other computer - to which I can download my digital pics - is reattached to the Internet.

In sad news, DH's server was hacked when some jerk crashed his firewall and started messing with stuff. This is why the other computer is not yet networked, He just got this one back to more or less normal yesterday after 3 or 4 days of intermittent access.