Legit Software

I'm sad to admit that I'm actually surprised at how much legal software I've got here on the new ThinkPad. Windows Vista is legal on it, and I have now got my legal copy of Adobe Creative Suite (1) on here, and last night I found and took advantage of a pretty good deal on Microsoft Office 2007, the Ultimate Edition, straight from Microsoft, for $80usd. So… here I am on the ThinkPad, with all legal music and all legal software. It's cool, and it was surprisingly affordable, especially given that this used my Windows software collection, which is, as we all know, extensive and varied. I like this setup though, especially since it allows me to move some of the responsibility away from the iMac, which I want to be my graphics/gaming computer.

On another note, I really do quite love Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, I've already started using it for notes for my classes, and I intend to keep using it for other things, such as keeping track of tasks, and other pieces of information I want to have handy. It'll definitely be something I use on a regular basis while I'm doing NaNoWriMo and other similar projects, I think.

Speaking of NaNo, I've got a bit of an idea, and I'm working on developing it a bit more through the end of September and into October. Hopefully by mid-October I should actually be ready to start writing, although what I'll do then is just start plot-sequencing onto notecards or some similar media. (like OneNote, since I'll be using the computer all the time anyway.)

In other news, I think I am going to expand my collection of DVD-RW media, I'd like to be able to use them to back up the ThinkPad, which means I should need about 30 total, maybe fewer. It'd be something I'd do not-too-often, maybe monthly full-system backups onto DVD-RW and weekly or nightly backups of just the changes onto the 40gig drive in the external enclosure. We'll see.

Fire Alarm

Well, it's happened. Gabaldon Hall has had a fire alarm that I've been here for. Apparently, according to Jim, it has actually happened multiple times, but this is the first time I've been here for one. It was about midnight, and luckily it didn't seem too serious, although it was quite interesting. Although, I didn't see Meaghan or Glenn, presumably they either were elsewhere, or just didn't come out. Oh well.

Epic Song

Jim was browsing 7-Chan today, and we discovered this most-epic song. Here is a YouTube video of it.



I love the Internet.

In other news, I discovered something called Ruckus. It's kind of stupid and kitschy at first, until you realize how much awesome, free music can be attained from it.

ThinkPads

Well, I suppose it is time once-again to update the ol' Blog. Of course, since my previous update, many things have transpired, all of which I would desperately love to let the world know.

But my time is purportedly more important than updating the blog everything minor (or major) happens in my life, even if it's one of those things that I consider to be of utmost importance.

One of the things for which I especially feel the need to update my blog is whenever my arsenal of computers is updated or changed, or I experience some major computing difficulty. (Silly dead hard discs.) In the past week, two major computing-related events have happened.

The first major event was that I got a ThinkPad. It's an old one, from mid-1995, a ThinkPad 760CD, which has a Pentium 90 or Pentium 120 processor, 8 megabytes of memory, and a 1.2 gigabyte hard disc. It's a nice little machine, has an okay keyboard, it was in amazing condition when I got it, and it's got a working battery, that yields about 3 hours of runtime, including fairly frequent hard disc access for things like opening and saving files, and freaking out trying to figure out where OS/2 Warp 3 puts some command I wanted. It feels like a very durable little machine, and the battery life on it is amazing. OS/2 Warp 3 isn't even that unusable as an operating system on it, and it does have some cool features like a "notepad" app that keeps groups of "pages," in what basically amounts to a book of notes and things, It's definitely a nifty notion, and I like the idea, but it's somewhat outdated, and it's difficult to move that data to a newer computer or put it online.

The second major event of which I will write, is that I got a ThinkPad. No, I'm not entering some crazy time warp where I repeat the same day over and over again. I got a second ThinkPad. It's a much newer one, and I do think I got a pretty good deal on it. I was at Staples with Megan, and naturally started wandering around, and the ThinkPad was there. It's the low end model, but it's at the bottom of a very high end series of computers, touted for their amazing durability and reliability. It was one of the machines I was already looking at buying, and after seeing the specs and the price, with both an instant reduction and a rebate, it was extraordinarily tempting. So I went ahead and got it, the Pismo is falling apart anyway, and the other ThinkPad, while a novel little thing, isn't exactly an effective machine when it comes to moving data in and out.

I did get a warranty from Staples, but I think I am going to go ahead and call Lenovo and see if they've got a warranty, if they do I will probably cancel the warranty from Staples. After the rebate, this machine will come to about $700, almost $200 cheaper than I could've gotten it for straight from Lenovo, even with the Educational discount.

It's not the slim X61 or the mighty T61, but it's got approximately the same computing power, and I don't mind the extra bit of chunkiness anyway. An added benefit is that this is a model that's got the ThinkPad RollCage, which is a nifty implement that will hopefully keep this thing running a long time.

Well, I'm sure there's more, but I've been sitting on this post for nearly three days. I've got to post it eventually.

Word 2007

Today, I'm working the desk in the South LAC as well as the ACHD phones. This certainly provides an interesting opportunity, as I am now having some time up close and personal (for the first time) with Microsoft Office 2007. I would still like to get my own copies of Vista and Office 2007, but at the very least, this is proving to be an interesting foray.

It'll be the first time since its release that I've had Word 2007 opened for more than a few minutes. I find it interesting, actually that the first thing I find in Word 2007 is the blog post function. I can see the usefulness though, it's a nice simplified view that provides mainly the functionality that I would need/want while writing a blog post. I can see actually, how somebody doing this for a living might want something like this.

One of the biggest changes is the ribbon and that new Office button. The ribbon provides what could be an excellent and much simpler interface to Word functionality. Although, it could also confuse a lot of veteran office users to no end. Plus, with no "traditional" menus such as File and Edit, I happen to have received several "how do you print?" questions about Office 2007. Once I got over myself and my Office 2003/2004 expertise, I realized that this is a great program. Presumably, it's suitemates in the Office 2007 systems are also worth their weight, but I haven't tried them yet.

I suppose this means that I am holding out, and instead of switching all of my office tasks over to Apple's new iWork '08 suite, I am going to be looking at Office 2007 and Office 2008 more closely. I am even considering just only using a PC for Office tasks, were I to get a newer mobile computer that happens to have the ability to run Windows. (Thinkpad T61, R61 or X61!)

Another interesting tidbit is that the monitors here at the S-LAC can be raised pretty high up. I can see how for somebody concerned with ergonomics, or rotating the display, that would be a pretty important little tidbit. It is accomplished on these (and other similar Dell LCD monitors) by pressing the button on the back of the base, and lifting the display up.

Also: I've linked my blog site to the blog of one of my online friends, Aeroraptor.

Of Pismos and ThinkPads.

The Pismo has developed a few more lines on the screen. It's now got a vertical red bar 3 pixels wide in the middle of the screen, and just a few pixels to the left of that, a 1px white line. Add to that, the screen's hinge hasn't been getting any tighter in the past few months. (Although the lower half is, in general, quite reliable it seems. :P)

I was therefore thinking about possible replacement of the Pismo, just because it turns out that having a fairly reasonably-well working mobile computer is actually extraordinarily helpful.

And then "The Eternal Question" popped up. Would a Pismo replacement be used or new?

I don't need all the functionality of a brand new laptop, so something even as old as the Pismo would be just fine, but I do wonder whether or not the added cost of a new one would make it worth waiting longer and getting a new one.

I suppose the benefit of a brand new laptop is that (unlike a used laptop), I'm here in 2007 at the very beginning of its life, instead of here in 2007 possibly at the close of what could have been a very long life.

Recently I asked somebody online about an IBM ThinkPad T20 mobile computer they were offering for sale. It was a fairly upgraded unit, having 512mb of memory and a 40 gigabyte hard disc, as well as a CDRW/DVDROM Combo drive, and some PCMCIA expansion cards. However, what I observed from this is that older ThinkPad computers are inordinately expensive, purely because of their longevity I suppose, similar to how overpriced some PowerBook G3 models are, I suppose.

The funny thing here, I suppose, was that if I could afford the T20 at its asking price, I was already more than a third the way to a newer laptop computer. (A Lenovo ThinkPad even.) Unexpected, but welcome benefits include not having to buy extra batteries straightaway, less fumbling with expansion options to do the same things, and more room and speed for more, and more sophisticated programs. Of course, there's also the whole thing about it lasting for so long.

On the other hand, getting another older laptop (even the insanely priced T20, or an insanely priced PowerBook G3) saves me a little bit of money, ensures I'll stay on-task while in classes, plus the whole thing is less valuable in case it's lost or something else awful happens.

Plus, with a new laptop, I lose the reputation of being efficient enough that I can do everything or nearly everything I need to do with the 8-year-old laptop. (It's 7 now, but it turns eight in January or February of next year, less than 6 months away.)

I suppose the real solution is just to wait until the Pismo dies, and I actually have enough money for a newer mobile computer. The Pismo isn't preventing me from progressing in my life, and admittedly while those lines are disconcerting, they don't prevent anything from getting done. I wouldn't be surprised if (even with the degrading condition of the screen) the Pismo really does still have another year or so left in it as my main mobile computer. So it's possible that at some point, I'll be "the guy with the ten year old laptop!"

Speaking of wild expectations...

Two posts in two days. Nice. I'm kind of unhappy though, right now. It turns out that I now have to drop my COM383 class, which in addition to my VC251 class brings me to about 12 credit hours, I think. Nice given my job, but unfortunate given the fact I really wanted to stay above 15. I think it might not be that bad, probably with EMF252 I'm sitting at 15 or 17, I'll look on LOUIE when it comes back up.

Although I suppose the advantage is that this gives more free time, and reduces my course-load, which will let me focus better on my other courses (many of which are actually important for my major) and of course my interpersonal relationships.

To be fair, my COM382 buddy had already dropped, so now we can be COM382-dropping buddies.

tehMegan

Well... I'm going out with somebody now. Megan, of course, is her name. Anybody who knows me will probably be fairly familiar with her, and astute readers of this blog will probably have read about her before, whether or not I actually mentioned her by name before. I met her before my freshman year at NAU, along with Glenn and Ally, also hailing from Tucson, at new student orientation.

I really do care about Megan, and I'm looking forward to a good relationship with her as "more than a friend." Last night, we spent a good chunk of time together, had dinner, went to the Flagstaff downtown art walk, watched a movie, and then just reclined for a few hours.

So it's with this blog post that I officially add the "Megan" category to the blogspot blog here. You'll probably be hearing more of Megan. ;)

Extreme Week

Well, I apologize. I've had a lot to write about lately, things I've done, reflections on working the phones for the ACHD, some NAULive/UTV62 things, and the SBS reception I attended representing NAU Live.

Although, what I've found is that between classes, work, and hanging out with Megan almost any time I'm not at work or in class, I really don't have the energy to write any detailed blog entries.

Although I think it's great to be back on campus, I do have some concerns. I'm not sure how long my little 750 dollars in dining money will last, and I am also not sure about my current financial aide and payment status. I work many many hours this coming weekend, and then my schedule should even out a little bit, which should improve everything.

As a sidenote, I am thinking of getting a Wacom tablet before long, I've been borrowing Megan's (Thank you, Megan!) and they're amazing. Although, I've got to fix my storage/backup situation first, so the first paycheck is likely to go toward an external 2-disk (mirrored, for data protection) box for my photos, some random temporary crap, and probably my video work.

Well, it's movie night, so I've got to wrap this up. Hopefully I will write again within the next week.

Macintosh LC520 Liberation

I have had a bit of an opportunity to use the LC520 for any amount of time, and after a bit of writing about it, pondering it, and doing some research and reading the documentation, I’ve decided to a) write an actual blog entry about it and b) write a blog entry using this interesting machine. So here it is, a blog entry that I am writing on a Mac LC520, using a cool old word processor called MacWritePro 1.5v3, which is only about a year newer than the 520 itself.


My particular example of the LC520 comes in a stock 5/80 configuration, which means it has 5 megabytes of memory, and an 80 megabyte hard disc. Think about that for a second. Five megabytes of system memory. And the thing was expandable to a total of 36MB. An 80 meg disk too, maybe it’s only me, but I think that that’s amazing. Add to that, the fact that after installing the operating system (Mac System 7.1), two word processing apps, a popular graphics application and a popular desktop publishing application, the disk still has nearly 48 megabytes left over for user data.

Although the ratio isn’t the best one ever, this is including the fact that “user data” was a whole lot smaller in 1993 (when the machine was manufactured) anywa, and the fact that I’ve got awful disk space management skills. So if I were to go through and delete things like sample docs, extensions I’ll never use, and actually optimise everything, (including removal of one of the two word processors), I would probably end up with about 20 to 30 megs used, which is much closer to the ratio of my modern computers.

It’s a usable machine overall, words appear on the screen as I type them, the whole thing boots to a desktop and allows me to launch and use applications. As a whole, it’s a great little system really, the 14 inch Trinitron display surpasses most modern CRT and some LCD displays in text readability, the built-in stereo speakers produce reasonably nice sound, and in fact, I think the only downside of this system is that the keyboard leaves a little something to be desired, but I chose this one (as opposed to an AEKII, which I could’ve gotten) for the authenticity.

I may at some point bring this machine to the university. It’s good for writing, and since it’s floppy drive works, it is easy enough to transfer such little bits of data (as documents and screenshots) back and forth between the two machines. Even if I don’t bring it to the university, I do have it here and it is set up on my desk here at dad’s house, in the spot my iMac used to have.

Back to K-Town for a few days, then.

Well, I’ve awakened and gotten ready to go, or at least almost completely ready to go. All I’ve got to do is put the water bottles into the little ice chest and be on my way, if I want to walk. Of course, I don’t actually know if I want to walk, but if I do I’m mostly ready. I think I will leave from the front exit today, in a bit of an effort to let everybody know I’ve gone, and I need to thank Amber for allowing me to stay here since Wednesday.

I could actually go to the SLAC at any given time, and I’d actually like to so I can "check my email" along with accessing a few other features of the Internet, such as AOL-IM and maybe IRC. I’ve also got a long queue of blog entries that I need to post, including this one, and it would probably be easier to do that if I had an Internet connection. On the other hand, it would be quite easy for me to just keep writing things. Although I’ve found out that if I do loads and loads of writing when I’m not online, I end up never posting the stuff I wrote, for one reason or another. (typically because I’ve told everybody who I think might read the blog over an IM anyway.)

[later in the day]
I’m now sitting in the business building with my laptop, hooked up to the internet via the NAU VPN and Wifi. It’s working fairly well. Mostly I’m just "checking my email" and now uploading blog entries. Add to that, I'm waiting for my ride back to Kingman. I'll then come back to NAU next Tuesday, as dad switched his day off.

Job, NAU Changes

Well, it’s pretty much official. I am going to start training for the Academic Computing Helpdesk job on Tuesday, the 21st. This means I am moving into Gabaldon early. However, for the first week or so, I have heard that the ACHD job is very extreme, and that I’ll have almost no time at all. Other than that, I don’t know how many hours I’ll be working or how much spare time I’ll have, between the ACHD job and my classes. We’ll see. I’m excited though, I think that between this and my driver license, which I got on Tuesday while finishing projects at the high school with Kate, marks the beginning of what I hope will be another great school year, and the beginning of "Cory as a member of productive society."

Today [Thursday the 16th] I walked around campus. It’s interesting, and weird all the things that have changed over the summer. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll list the changes from South to North.
- Flood at the duBois Center. (it’s in a reduced state of operation, and apparently the basement is totally full of mud.)
- There’s grass around the McKay apartments, and the landscaping all around the campus has been tidied and looks great.
- The Applied Research & Development looks AWESOME.
- The new dorm is almost a recognizable building structure now. And while standing in front of Tinsley or Cowden, you can’t see Allen. From Cowden, you can barely see the East end of Wilson.
- They built a dumpster holder at the northeast corner of Cowden, a lot like the one they built near the southwest corner of Raymond, and the southeast corner of McDonald.
- They moved the sundial that used to be to the north/east of the student union to the west side, in front of Cline Library.
- They started a project for expansion/improvement of the Student Union dining area, it goes almost all the way to the peace pond, and it’ll be 2 stories, presumably filled either with dining accoutrements and the like.
- People have moved into the science building on North Campus, I have serious doubts about the claim that it’s not actually fit for it’s work, but I’ll have to check on who exactly said that.
- Various other maintenance projects have started, especially behind Morton/North/Campbell Halls, and in some of those far-north walkways.
- The bookstore is totally different inside, Megan might like it, and on a sidenote, I didn’t have any mail in my PO box.
- Allen Hall now has the ID card entrance system. I wonder if Allen/Wilson is still a complex, or if Wilson Hall will be doing things on its own now. Maybe they’ll make the Wilson/Tinsley complex. (although I personally think Tinsley/Cowden would make a better complex.)
- I’ll leave mentioning anything about Surplus Sales for later, although I did visit – I’ve got to let Seth and Jim find out on their own. (although I can say this much: no TVs for really cheap.)

After my on-campus adventure, I came back to Amber’s house, and used her computer for a bit. After "checking my eMail" (which means about an hour or two on NAU eMail, G-Mail, Google-Talk, Facebook and deviantArt) I went back down to discover that Sarah was around, unloading a few things into her room (which is where I’ve been staying here at Amber’s house.) Nice little diversion, we all went up to this room and alternated between watching Sarah set up her desk and watching Amber’s bunny Zoey hop around the room. What a cute little bunny! After Sarah & Family left, Amber and I went to a cheap little Mexican restaurant, nice and cheap for some cheese enchiladas, which is great. I can also now say I’ve seen all of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which was certainly an entertaining movie. Although I feel gypped because it ended in an unexpected (although very funny) way. Afterward I came back to the room up here and took a nap, then woke up and started writing this (very, very long) blog entry.

Returning to Flag

Well, shortly here I’ll be heading back to Flagstaff. The only thing that makes this noteworthy is that I’m going a week early, in an effort to potentially get a job. I am scheduled for an interview at the Academic Computing Helpdesk at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. Hopefully I can get the job, because it would certainly be nice to have a bit of extra money during the school year, I can say with some confidence that the next major thing I need will be either Leopard, or some additional storage for the computer, but I’ll save all of that figuring for later.

Anyway, I’ve got to get to bed fairly early (a few minutes before midnight, at least) because tomorrow, Dad and I are going a few places to get some last minute wardrobe additions for the coming year.

Another sidenote: I have intended for a few weeks to write a little retrospective on what I’ve used this blog for, and what I think the future for it holds, but with all the technical notes, and now status updates I need to do... who knows whether or not I’ll be able to do any of that.

iWork '08

I am currently working on testing some of the new features in iWork ’08. I typically use the Word Processing features of any given application or application suite more than any of the other functions, so let me go ahead and explain about some of the things I thought were wrong in previous versions of iWork.
The main problem with iWork, as I’ve had in the past is its insistence upon styles, and the difficulty I had in controlling them to my benefit. Also, it is very difficult to write an MLA format paper with it. What I’m discovering here though, is that it’s much easier to do these things now in iWork ’08, which includes a fairly standard toolbar. Another thing I always disliked about iWork was the awful file format, which seems as though it’s here to stay, but iWork will at least be able to open and save Word Documents, and I can export or save-as whenever I need to migrate a document to another computer. It does concern me that .doc is not a selection for default file format, but it shouldn’t be difficult to just “save as” whenever I need to move a document around to another machine. Especially to my mobile computer, which will be running Mac OS 9 with Office 98, most likely. (battery life issues: the machine is perfectly capable of Mac OS X 10.4, and therefore Pages ’08, but I can get about 1.5x the battery life if I run Mac OS 9.)
Spreadsheets in various forms are the other thing I use more often than presentations. I typically use them for lists, checklists, and little database-like things such as my list of RW media, which I update every time I re-burn one. Numbers then, is what I’ve been waiting for. It allows great flexibility in how I set up my spreadsheets, and what can be done with them. For example, it allows pull-down selections for pre-determined values, and it’s got sliders, steppers and a few other interesting things. If I actually did spreadsheets with numerical data, there is other enhancements and features I’d be able to use, like the ability to have more than one table on any given page, or the ability to combine tables and charts on the same page. I can imagine this being pretty good, especially for tables charts and whatnot created as part of a report that’s destined for a printer.
I’ve yet to look at any more of the integration between the iWork apps, nor have I looked at some of the other features like change-tracking or commenting in Pages, but I really think that this will be a reasonable replacement for my traditional productivity app, Microsoft Office. The main problem I’m having with even thinking about Office is the fact that it won’t be available until next January. By then, I’ll have learned iWork and grown to love it.

It's Official

Yes, that's right folks. It's official. Rotating storage hates me. Between now two failures of my iMac's hard disc, the various issues I've had with burning CDs and DVDs, and my latest little issue... I have just got to say that I've currently got very little faith in rotating storage.

Presently, the failure at hand is of my 80 gigabyte XIMETA external hard disc. The one I got a few years ago to use with my PowerBook G4. My temporary solution to this is to copy all of XIMETA's data onto my backup hard disc -- thus putting my iMac's data at risk again. Long term, I have no idea what I am going to do about this.

My biggest problem right now is a huge chunk of data -- 42 gigabytes of photos -- that I don't want to split up, or lose on DVDs. One idea is for me to just archive them onto DVDs now, and re-archive the whole set every two or three years, either onto bigger media, or at least onto newer discs that will be "good to go" for another few years.

I suppose this is where I need to say something about how I need to reevaluate my data backup scheme. We all know it's true, but I'm not going to say it.

As an aside, today is the fifth anniversary of me signing up for the 68k Mac Liberation Army, way back in August of 2002. I would have been just between 7th and 8th grades.

Merits of Expandability

Hmm... Well this is entertaining. One of the things I discuss with certain people quite often is whether or not the average mere mortal will actually need in-computer expansion capabilities such as slots and extra hard disc bays. I know, almost everybody could always use more memory, but honestly, will most people ever actually install an upgrade graphics card?

I typically say that most average human beings won't need these things, and in fact a lot of people who are considered "high end" users don't actually use a lot of the expansion capabilities bestowed upon them. I typically include myself in this, because I realize that almost everything I've ever wanted for my Macs has either been an add-on that I could do externally via a firewire port, or something I didn't need.

On the other hand... just today, I found one or two different PCI Express cards that I'd like, and I realized that if I had the opportunity to do so, I would probably have all four bays of a MacPro filled within a year. Getting those drives will cost more because I've got to figure out something to put them in, and when I do that, I won't even get all of the performance the drives are capable of offering. (after filling the internal bays, I'd probably have to try to get an eSATA card. :P)

And all of this comes from just two tangents I went on today... data longevity and video i/o. Actually, data longevity led to video. I was researching using a MiniDV deck as a tape drive for making backups of my iMac's external hard discs. (one of which is, in and of itself, a backup of its startup drive) From there, I was surprised at how much cheaper it is to buy a whole MiniDV camcorder than to buy a standalone MiniDV or Digi8 deck. From there, i researched high def camcorders. I found that there is a 3-ccd Panasonic camcorder selling for less than 600usd. The catch is that it records AVCHD data onto DVDs or SDHC cards, and AVCHD is pretty much impossible to use on a Mac.

Enter another PCI-E card. It turns out that blackmagic design has a card out there with HDMI input for just $249 This brings a complete high-def setup (with a fairly nice camera) for less than a thousand bucks. (though there is the Canon HV10 for 650 too, which is "proper" tape-based HDV that can be imported into imovie or final cut.

Well... not that I've got money for any of those upgrades now, or for the prerequisite "really high end Mac," but it was at least an interesting observation on the apparently "not totally useless" expansion slots, and how a higher initial investment in a system with more options for connectivity can result in a lower investment later for things like getting into high def video, or expanding storage capacity. I think next time I buy a Mac, I'm going to save up a bit more and try to get a MacPro [or whatever midrange/highend system is suitable at the time].

The Stress-Relieving Powers of Sarcasm

I'€™m visiting my mother'€™s house. It€'s great and all, except for all the ways in which, over the past year, it€'s become awful. I pretty much let my mother know this back in November. I believe there was no shortage of funny faces, somewhat rude comments, and a variety of other ways in which I was somehow able to say "I'€™m dissatisfied with this."

What I've found is that I've got a similar thing going on now, except that things are a little bit better. However, she is now using other physical cues to tell me that being in her home causes me great stress. Back in May she told me I needed to lose weight because I had somewhat high blood pressure, which was apparently evident because my foot wasn'€™t as bony/veiny as it should'€™ve been. On Thursday when I came back, I thought my foot looked okay and showed it to her, hoping for evidence of some kind of progress with my health, but she said it looked just as bad, and she introduced the possible factor of stress.

It occurred to me that it is probably pretty stressful for me to be here now. It isn'€™t as though I really dislike her or her house, or even my brother, but they'€™ve made some choices in the past year that it'€™s really difficult for me not to comment on. And yet, after some of the disasters that happened last November, I'€™ve managed to do very well holding my tongue in December and then again in May. Mom told me this past Thursday that it must have stressed me out pretty badly, the thought that I'€™d have to come here.

I suppose it did add a bit of stress. At mom'€™s house, I sleep in the office on a couch(1), everybody smokes but me, and the entire thing is allowed to be significantly more messy than it ever was in the past, in addition it'€™s become a much more "€œopen" environment where any one of my mother'€™s many new friends(2) can just walk in and out as they please.

What I wonder, I suppose, is whether or not I'm stressed because I don't feel I can speak openly. One of the things I suppose I became used to at NAU is the expectation that I was able to say pretty much whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to say it. So pretty much everybody knew how I felt about a lot of things, because I didn't feel bad about making snarky little comments about things. Here, on the other hand, the slightest little offhand comment that wasn't intended to mean anything, goes a very long way, down a dark, destructive path. Recovering from those tiny comments takes much longer than it should here too.

Ah well. They'€™re my family and I suppose that means I'€™ve got to love '€˜em. It probably isn'€™t as bad as I think it is, and I'€'m sure it's healthy for my mother to be indulging in such things as having friends, and running her house as she chooses. I'€™m just not quite adjusted to the changes I suppose. I'€™ll be back at dad’s house in a few days anyway, and then back to NAU on the 23rd.

1. Which, believe it or not, is actually worse than just a mattress on the floor.
2. Most of whom I don'€™t particularly like.

Bike Ride

uunnghh....

No, I'm not a zombie, but I suppose I'm close. I decided today at about 10 a.m. that it'd be a good idea to return my library book today. (It was LoTR-1 -- and no, I still haven't read it.) Having walked to the library last Saturday, I thought it would be a good idea to go a different way today. (Well, I thought I might give LOTR a try -- I literally fell asleep after reading some of the foreword.) (Or was it the prologue?)

Anyway, I rode my bike to the library today, and discovered that it was an incredibly stupid thing to do on my part. Mainly, it got way hot outside way fast, I didn't bring enough water along, and it turns out that I'm not really *that* great at riding a bike, it takes a lot of strength and energy to do it in the heat like this, and more water than I brought.

So for next time, more water, not biking, and I still need to get a hat, it seems.

New HDD Installed

Today, the replacement hard disc for my iMac came in. I am now booted from the utility partition of the USB2 drive, and am restoring the backup to the primary drive. After that, I am going to think about running all of the software updates. This will be a prime way to test my theory that this particular backup system will be acceptable as a method to use to test new system updates for a few days before deciding whether or not I really want to commit to that update.

Another possibility for backup -- later on -- could be to get an ethernet/usb2 disk that I can back up to over ethernet from one or maybe even multiple computers, and then yank out and hook up directly to the machine with USB2 if I ever need to restore from the drive. we'll see whether or not I ever do that though. For now, the 200gig drive over USB2 will work.

For what it's worth, the "iSight" based iMacs are very complicated. -- Needlessly so. You must remove the front, then lift out the LCD panel (which is a pretty big and delicate part) before being able to access the cool bits of the motherboard, the hard disc or the optical drive.

Getting Things Done

On this luckiest of days, it occurs to me that this summer has been wasted mostly on trivialities, little things that don't matter much in the long run. That's fine with me, but I feel as though I should do something that I feel will have some kind of lasting effect.

More importantly, I've been thinking about the status of the 68kMLA, and the 68k User Base. What I've noticed is that the users of older 68k and PowerPC machines are really just that -- users. We've got very few mega-hobbyists who do programming on them, and get deep into the hardware and architecture of the machines. The 68kMLA/PPCMLA on their own aren't very conducive to those discussions, and most of the people around wouldn't be interested if it were there.

So I feel like I should do something for the retro Mac community -- but what? Should I be writing software? Lobbying for the simplification of websites? I personally don't think that either of those is a very great idea, but I do believe that there are things I can do to help the community.

One of the things I've tried to do before is work on a database of software titles for Macs. This is important for a lot of reasons. It gives me something to do, for starters, and I think it's a fairly important contribution to the community. Especially if I could find information on things such as intro and discontinuation dates on various pieces of software, plus prices to help indicate to people just how much software actually cost.

We'll see though. I'm working on setting up a spot on my own website where potentially, a few people will be able to post information as they get it, but with any information-gathering project, it's not just something we'll be able to do and say "oh cool, done now." It's something that we'll have to work on, pretty much for a long time, I don't think that archiving all of the information about 68k Macs, even just about the software, will ever be done.

Another thing that was pointed out was the fact that the information about Apple's systems is really inconsistent, not only between Apple's website, but given the fact that there were a certain, well-known range of models released, I find it less important to release yet-another specs database.

Anyway, maybe one day I'll start on my Software Titles database, but for now I'm just going to write blog entries about how I think I should. Plus, I'm not entirely sure how I'll coordinate it yet.