Today I finally achieved browsing Nirvana - a way to get Opera 9 for Mac to use Speed Dial as your home page so you can jump straight to it from the current page, instead of having to open a new tab. Well, almost. It uses a custom button that looks like the Home button, which means it's a good idea to get rid of the real Home button to avoid confusion. The button is available here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~vangeijt/opera/dndbuttons.html

A silly little thing, but it makes life so much easier!

Posted by Anne at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally got Leopard installed at about 7.30 this morning, after a four-hour struggle (yes, I was up at 3am fixing my computer!). It was only when I found I couldn't install anything - Leopard, Tiger, Kubuntu - that I began to suspect a hardware problem...

To cut a very long story short, I managed to get the MacBook to boot from an external drive (a DVD-RW that I bought a while back) and install Tiger, then I repeated the process with Leopard. Now (fingers crossed!) I have a happy laptop again, and am reinstalling my mail, favourite apps, etc. Fortunately nearly all the software I use can be downloaded from the internet, so if it is my optical drive that's the problem, it's one I can live with until I can afford repairs.

I am soo-ooo relieved - the prospect of having to visit the Genius Bar at our local Apple store, on the penultimate Saturday before Christmas, no less, was not an appealing one!

Posted by Anne at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been having a very frustrating day trying to get Leopard installed on my MacBook - or rather, trying to get it set up the way I want it.

See, I used the beta of Bootcamp on Tiger to install Kubuntu on a separate partition, but now I have an old desktop set up with Kubuntu for working-from-home use, I decided to reclaim my hard drive. Turned out that Bootcamp, even on Leopard, can't cope with anything more complicated than a straight OSX-only-to-dual-booting-Windows scenario, but I discovered that the drive could be repartitioned using Disk Utility. Or not.

First, DU refused to remove either of my two Linux partitions. On the advice of a Linux forum, I used my Kubuntu install disk to delete the two partitions, then went back into OSX. Now there was only one partition, but DU was still complaining that it couldn't do it.

After more Googling I discovered that the Disk Utility program in Leopard is in fact borked, at least the partitioning stuff is. Yet more Googling revealed that the best thing to do was to use a Tiger install disk to do the repartitioning. OK - but that left me with a wiped drive and a Tiger disk stuck in my MacBook's optical drive! Eventually I found a solution to that one too (hold down the trackpad button when rebooting), and I was finally able to attempt an installation.

That should have been an end to it. Except that now my MacBook has decided that it isn't going to read the slightly scratchy secondhand copy of Leopard that I had bought. Talk about frustrating!

As a result I have spent my entire Friday afternoon pissing about with installation disks, and I'm still not done. This is going to require a curry and a big glass of wine. Or several...

(Written on my EeePC whilst I waited for yet another installation attempt to work!)

Posted by Anne at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To be honest, I was never into Thundercats - I preferred He-Man (Skeletor was so camp, and Prince Adam's disguise was about as thin as Clark Kent's!). However I needed a title for my Mac OSX upgrade, and since I didn't sleep well last night, I fell back on cliché. Bite me.

Anyways... I've decided to bring forward my IT-fest by a couple of weeks, because if anything goes wrong, I'd rather be able to take my MacBook into work and pick the brains of my colleagues, rather than sitting at home for a week with a poorly laptop. So, starting this week, I'm going to be backing up everything in sight ready for the Big Brain Transplant...

Posted by Anne at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm manically preparing for my unofficial NaNoWriMo at the moment, a key part of which is revising the outline of "The Guiser" using SuperNotecard. Only problem is, there seems to be no easy way to get that outline into Scrivener once I'm finished. On the off-chance that someone else out there had encountered the same problem and solved it, I posted on the Literature & Latte forum.

Imagine my surprise when, within 24 hours, Keith the developer of Scrivener replied to say that he had come up with a solution and would be including it in the next release. Now that's what I call service! Admittedly, Scrivener 1.5 won't be out until some time in the New Year because there are a lot of other changes being incorporated, but I can wait until then. After all, I've still got an awful lot of wrting to do...

Posted by Anne at 7:53 AM | Permalink

For a while now I've been sticking with the standard Xandros Linux that came with my Eee, simply because I hadn't found a proper distro that supported the hardware out-of-the-box (plus the boot time on a standard OS was 3-4 times as long!). Well, all that changed at the weekend when I discovered eeebuntu, a nifty repackaging of the current Eeebuntu Hardy Heron with a custom kernel and some handy utility scripts. All the hardware works, and with the aid of these instructions I now have it booting to the login screen in just 35 seconds!

After installing my favourite writing apps for Linux (SuperNotecard and Zim), I added a subdued but stylish Emerald theme for Compiz, and my Eee is now looking extremely cool! And yes, that is an OSX-style dock at the bottom, called AWM (click on the image for a closeup view).

Anyway, my Eee PC is now ready for business, so I'm going to need another excuse for procrastinating on my writing :)

Posted by Anne at 6:27 AM | Permalink

My name is Anne Lyle, and I'm a palmoholic.

Yep, I've had to admit it to myself. I recently decided I was fed up with the Palm Treo 680 I bought a few months ago, and bought a cheapo Nokia (3110 Classic) from a work colleague to replace it. However the Nokia's music player is somewhat frustrating, as the display is too small to show more than a dozen or so characters of the track titles. It's fine for music, but not for podcasts, as you usually see only the beginning of the podcast name with no indication of episode, and they don't necessarily get listed in the right order either! I found myself really missing Pocket Tunes, as well as a few other favourite Palm apps, but I didn't want to go back to the Treo as I really wanted something with a good text entry system (I just didn't find the Treo's thumb-board at all easy to use).

I ended up getting a Tungsten E2 from ebay for sixty quid - and it arrived this morning, yay! It's got an annoying screen whine that can only be shut up by using a system utility called warpSpeed that could potentially knacker the whole PDA(!), but apparently this flaw is endemic in Palm's recent larger-screen devices, so there doesn't seem much point in sending it back. I'll just have to be a bit more careful about backing it up...

Posted by Anne at 4:37 PM | Permalink

My Eee 900 arrived this afternoon, and I'm posting this entry from it! The keyboard is taking a little getting used to, but I can type surprisingly fast on it already, now that I've switched it to use Dvorak. The only real complaint I have so far is that it does get quite hot in operation - one reason I was so keen to get the Palm Foleo - and I suspect that the battery life will be disappointing as well. I just hope that UK buyers can pressurise Asus into supplying the same battery to consumers as they did to reviewers (in our case, 5200Ah instead of 4400).

Really looking forward to taking this to the writers' conference next month - next task is to get SuperNotecard installed!

Posted by Anne at 5:24 PM | Permalink

OK, so I decided to switch to the Pearl White Eee 900, because the keyboard would be easier to read in dim light (a big issue when you suffer from presbyopia, as I do). On the plus side, the white Linux edition is already available in the UK, so I was able to bring the delivery date forward by a week. On the minus side, although Misco have dispatched my Eee today (on next day delivery), despite it being a Bank Holiday, CityLink have an estimated delivery date of Wednesday 7th. WTF???

Thumbs up to Misco, big thumbs down to CityLink...

Posted by Anne at 9:45 PM | Permalink

I've been having one of those weeks. You know, the sort where nothing really bad happens, but there are countless minor irritations each day that add up to a world of frustration?

However there's nothing so bad it can't be alleviated by a bit of retail therapy... :)

Continue reading "Retail therapy" »

Posted by Anne at 7:27 AM | Permalink

I put my Samsung Q1U on ebay yesterday evening, as I had finally got around to buying an external optical drive so I could reinstall Windows - and within three hours it had sold via "Buy it Now"! Guess I should have asked more for it, but then I would have been annoyed if it hadn't sold, and at least I've pretty much covered the cost of buying the iLiad.

Very much enjoying the iLiad, btw. Currently reading "My Own Kind of Freedom", by Stephen Brust (a Firefly novel). Shiny!

Posted by Anne at 5:56 AM | Permalink

My iRex iLiad arrived yesterday morning. Needless to say I didn't wait 3 hours for it to finish charging before I played with it :)

First impressions are that, although the software is generally slower than a normal computer, page turning has been speeded up noticably since the demo videos I saw on the web. Wireless was also a bit fiddly to get going - you have to hold down the button for several seconds to get the connection started, and the first time you try to connect, it can take a while - but once it was established, it went fine. I upgraded to the latest software (2.12) over the Internet, then connected to my MacBook (using instructions from the iRex forum, since the companion software is Windows-only) and loaded the iLiad up with a bunch of free ebooks from feedbooks.com.

Reading on the iLiad is a completely different experience from using a computer. The pages look like ordinary paper - albeit very pale grey rather than white, and slightly reflective from being behind a glass cover - so no eye-strain, or at least no more than if you were reading from print. No messing around with scroll bars or buttons, either; just flick the flipbar like you're turning the page on a book, and the page changes at about the same speed as using paper. Obviously you have more page turns because the ebook shows only one page at a time, not a two-page spread, but otherwise it's pretty damned close to reading a book.

I've now got all my critique reading loaded on as PDFs, so I can catch up on the two novels I'm supposed to comment on. Since I managed roughly 10k in bed last night, that shouldn't be a problem!

Posted by Anne at 7:41 AM | Permalink

After a month of having Ubuntu on the Samsung, I'm finding it very frustrating - suspend/hibernate is still very buggy and unreliable, the inoperable arrow buttons make reading a document whilst on the move very fiddly, and to cap it all, a recent automatic update broke the mounting of the swap partition so it wouldn't boot any more!

As a result it is proving pretty useless as a document reader/annotator, which is my main requirement at the moment. I have therefore decided to get a proper ebook reader and - shock, horror! - sell the Samsung on ebay to pay for it. After some research online I have plumped for the iRex iLiad; it's one of the more expensive models, but it has a Wacom digitizer built in so you can make notes on PDFs, which is perfect for my needs. Plus it is based on Linux and there are ports of various apps including busybox and AbiWord, so it can also be used as a basic word-processor with the addition of a mini USB keyboard.

Posted by Anne at 12:52 PM | Permalink

After a week of research and trial'n'error, I've finally finished installing Ubuntu on the Samsung. It's still not perfect - the processor runs a bit hot, which reduces battery life - but I have all the functionality I need for a mobile editing machine. I've written an installation tutorial and a review article, the latter for TabletPCReview.com.

Posted by Anne at 7:03 AM | Permalink

My Neo finally arrived today, two days later than anticipated (I wasn't able to work at home this week, and UPS made a pig's ear of changing the delivery address). Sad person that I am, I already picked out a name: Ivor. It's short for both Ivor Novello (I know, seriously groan-worthy!) and Ivor the Engine, who is of course green and heroic :) I don't normally name inanimate objects, but all our computers have to have names so they can be identified on our home network, and although the Neo can't be networked, it's still part of my IT infrastructure.

Continue reading "Ivor is here!" »

Posted by Anne at 8:00 PM | Permalink

Over the last couple of weeks I've been looking forward to NaNoWriMo rather nervously, hoping I can win it again and avoid the dreaded "sophomore slump". One thing that has bothered me is that, whilst I do want to use my Alphasmart Dana - I don't think I could have won without it last year - I do sometimes find the screen hard to read. And since I've also been having eyestrain headaches lately, I want to avoid making things worse by squinting at the Dana all November. I've therefore decided to get a different Alphasmart, the Neo - the screen is smaller but apparently has much better contrast. Also, although it is purely a word-processor (no Palm OS or wireless), on the upside it runs forever off a single set of AA batteries, so I wouldn't have to worry about keeping it charged either.

Continue reading "Neo decision" »

Posted by Anne at 8:10 PM | Permalink

Yesterday I spent some time trying out StoryLines (part of the Writer's Cafe suite), an outlining program that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Apart from its OS-agnosticism (which is not to be sneezed at), the main difference from SuperNotecard and Scrivener is that you have to assign your cards to a story line, and the cards are laid out in horizontal rows across the corkboard. After some consideration, however, I have decided that the ability to use it on Linux is not enough to make me switch.

Continue reading "Close, but no cigar" »

Posted by Anne at 8:00 AM | Permalink

My Samsung Q1 Ultra arrived on schedule this morning. First impressions: very sleek and well built, with a glossy "piano black" finish, and the screen is every bit as stunning as I'd been led to believe. I'll be taking it on holiday to Scotland, and writing a review of it for tabletpcreview.com when I've had a chance to put it through its paces...

Posted by Anne at 10:57 AM | Permalink

My Samsung Q1 Ultra shipped this afternoon, so it will be with me tomorrow. Deep joy! And to add to my confidence that I've made a sound choice, I've just found out that Ubuntu are planning on releasing a mobile version of their Linux OS next month - and guess what they've been testing it on...

Posted by Anne at 6:43 PM | Permalink

What can I say? Palm have cancelled the Foleo, thus proving they have totally lost the plot. Having put so much R&D into their new device, they cacked out and pulled it at the eleventh hour, fearing poor sales. They say they are still committed to the Foleo concept when the time is right, but I think they may have shot their wad. By the time Foleo II is ready for market, it will be up against the Asus Eee 10", the rumoured Apple solid-state sub-notebook and all manner of competition. A classic case of too little, too late...

If Apple do come out with a sub-notebook, I fear it will be either

a) a clamshell version of the newly-announced iPod Touch, i.e. running a very basic OS similar to the iPhone

b) an expensive executive toy, similar to the Sony TZ (currently two grand!!)

Frankly I've given up on these people and ordered a Samsung Q1 Ultra. OK so it comes with XP Tablet (yuk!), but there's a project afoot to create a mobile Linux distro for it, and it might even be capable of running Knoppix or a similar low-profile Linux distro. I guess if you want a truly mobile computer right now and aren't made of money, you have to bite the M$ bullet or get your hands dirty...

Posted by Anne at 10:55 PM | Permalink

Today I'm trying out Mo:Blog again, this time on the Treo. I think part of my problem using it on the Dana was the lousy WiFi - I'm hoping the Treo fares better. Of course the thumb keyboard isn't as fast or comfortable to use, bur it's not bad, considering...

Posted by Anne at 1:10 PM | Permalink

Techno-lust finally won out over patience today - I ordered a Palm Treo 680 smartphone to replace my Z22 PDA + iPod + Z600 phone. A totally impulsive purchase, driven by boredom and frustration, I have to confess. Retail therapy for geeks!

Having resisted a convergent device for several years, I've finally gotten bored of keeping three things charged - one gadget that I charge every night and keep on my bedside table as an alarm clock is enough, thanks! The fact that it will sync with the Foleo and give me access to my email at all times is an added bonus :)

* "Tri-o, Tri-i-i-o! I want a Trio and I want one now!" (old TV ad for a chocolate bar, sung to the tune of "The Banana Boat Song")

Posted by Anne at 2:59 PM | Permalink

Had a bit of a panic with the Dana in the last 48 hours - tried to sync it with my laptop and got nothing but error messages. I was starting to panic, thinking I would have to send it in for repair and thus not be able to take it to the conference.

After a lot of messing about with different cables and USB ports, emailing tech support, soft resetting and hard resetting, I finally twigged the problem. My laptop has the more recent version of the Palm Desktop installed, from the disk that came with the Z22, because I wiped OSX before I sent it in for repair. The Dana, on the other hand, needs an older version. Doh!

Posted by Anne at 9:01 PM | Permalink

Whilst visiting the Alphasmart forum on Flickr today I found out about a new Palm device, the Foleo, to be released this summer.

It's met with some scorn from IT fanboys, probably in large part because of an ill-conceived marketing campaign which gives the impression that it's nothing more than a large-screen/keyboard peripheral for a Treo smartphone. In fact it's a standalone device with full WiFi capability that happens to be able to sync easily with a Treo. More to the point, it's a Linux-based mobile word-processor with email and web capabilities, not much heavier than an Alphasmart Dana. Much as I like the Dana, its wireless capabilities are frankly rubbish: no decent web browser, slow email and connection decidedly flaky. Heck, if I had a portable device with a good browser, I might even update this blog more often!

For me the deciding factor will be how easily it can be customised to use Dvorak - unless it can, it's close but no cigar...

Posted by Anne at 6:22 PM | Permalink

This morning I decided that, since my MacBook is out of warranty, I'd have a go at rearranging the physical keys to the Dvorak layout. I found some useful photos on Flickr, but ended up devising my own, easier technique.

Continue reading "Key cap shuffle" »

Posted by Anne at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My new Palm arrived yesterday, and it really is cute! Small enough to fit into my shoulder bag's phone pocket, and weighs half of nothing. The screen is obviously a bit pixelated, being only 160x160, but it's fine for everyday use - and a darn sight more readable than the Alphasmart!

So far I've installed TealScript (because I can't get used to Graffiti 2), BrainForest and HanDBase for writing notes, and a few puzzle games. Only annoyance so far - despite having turned off system sound in Prefs, it still clicks from time to time.

Posted by Anne at 9:57 AM | Permalink

Phew! I've finished the character assignments for 2YN already - they weren't as complicated as I'd feared - so I've been looking ahead to the world-building section. I spotted that for the first assignment we have to decide how we're going to organize our notes - one thing I enjoy doing!

One suggestion is to use a PDA, but having lent both my Palm Tungsten T3 (now dead) and LifeDrive to my husband, my only Palm-powered device is the Alphasmart. It may have been ideal for NaNoWriMo, but the screen is a bit dark for other uses and it's hardly pocket-sized, so I've decided to go for a very basic Palm PDA to complement the Alphasmart. It's a Z22 - an inexpensive, no-frills model that should make an ideal electronic jotting pad. I've ordered it from Amazon and it should arrive on Tuesday morning, which gives me a few days to check it's working and install the software I need. I want to get my character notes copied into HanDBase, as well as setting up BrainForest for world-building and outlining. And of course I have to install a Mac OS X theme, because the Z22 looks decidedly Apple-esque :)

Posted by Anne at 6:52 PM | Permalink

Yesterday we went down to London to collect my MacBook from the Apple store, after two weeks under repair. The logic board had been replaced, so I assumed all would be OK. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I was working on it today and it suddenly shut down! I am beginning to think the problem lies with the battery - either that or there is something badly wrong with the machine as a whole :(

Posted by Anne at 4:07 PM | Permalink

My MacBook has gone off to Apple for repair, so I'm going to be sans laptop for a while - not ideal for editing. I'll just have to work from paper copies then type up my changes on the Mac Mini...

Posted by Anne at 7:41 AM | Permalink

I found out yesterday that my iBook, which suffered water damage back in May 2006 and was replaced by a MacBook, is officially a write-off. Since I don't have any other computer to use whilst my MacBook is being repaired, I've decided to get a Mac Mini. I have a big flat-screen monitor sitting around doing sweet FA, and plenty of spare keyboards and mice, so I only need the Mac Mini itself :)

Now I just need my husband to sort out his home office, so that there's space for it!

Posted by Anne at 12:17 PM | Permalink

Aaargh!! My six-month old MacBook has started exhibiting "sudden shutdown syndrome"! I've done the recommended resets (and I reinstalled Tiger only a week ago), but given that my machine is in the affected serial number range, I have a nasty feeling it'll have to go in for repair :(

Thankfully NaNoWriMo is almost over and I've still got 95% of my data backed up from the last reinstall, so when I've finished and verified my word count, I'll be on to Apple to get this baby fixed. It's also a good excuse to get my old iBook up and running again...

Posted by Anne at 9:06 AM | Permalink

Well, I've tried an alternative (u*Blog) and just got an error message, so it's back to mo:Blog - maybe if I read the manual I'll get it right this time :)

So, I'm writing this at work (where I now have wireless access on the Dana!) - I will save this entry and try to upload it later.

[Updated online: well, it got the saved datestamp and line-endings right this time - all I have to do is get the hang of setting categories! Think this program's a keeper :) ]

Posted by Anne at 1:13 PM | Permalink

I¹m writing this in Mo:blog on my Dana as a test of its blogging capabilities. If it works, it should make it easier for me to keep up this blog, especially as I can write entries offline wherever I am and then upload them when I have access to a wireless network.

[Edited online] The posting certainly worked, but the datestamping and category were lost (I wrote the actual entry on August 31) and strange end-of-line characters appeared. I think a little more experimentation is needed!

Posted by Anne at 7:28 AM | Permalink

Not only did my Dana arrive on schedule (well done, Portable Technology!), but the iPod turned up in the post as well. Two toys to play with this evening - I shan't know which one to start on!

No, that's not true. One of them is an "it just works" Apple product, the other is a complex device requiring careful setup and choosing of options - bit of a no-brainer for a geek like me ;)

Posted by Anne at 11:48 AM | Permalink

I've abandoned my plan to buy an older Dana on ebay, as prices were too high for my liking - I feel it's a false economy to pay more than about 50% RRP for secondhand electronics (at least when the RRP is more than, say £100), since they have no warranty and could thus turn into landfill within days of purchase. So, I've ordered a wireless Dana from the cheapest online shop I could find, and it's due to arrive tomorrow :D

On the plus side, last Thursday I won an auction for an "unwanted gift" white iPod Nano. I didn't make a massive saving, but did effectively get 2GB for the price of 1 :)

Posted by Anne at 7:31 PM | Permalink

I've decided that what with wedding plans and late summer gardening, I'm just not going to have much time to devote to writing over the next two months; however I should be relatively free by November, just in time for NaNoWriMo :)

Continue reading "Preparing for NaNoWriMo" »

Posted by Anne at 6:51 PM | Permalink

Well, I've just changed the default keyboard on my MacBook to Dvorak, as I'm getting a tad irritated by OSX changing my personal settings back to Qwerty whenever I open any systems admin utilities! I'm still very slow on Dvorak for "real" typing, as opposed to drills, but I think it's the only way...

Posted by Anne at 8:08 AM | Permalink

I know I've been remiss in blogging for the past few days, but I wanted to get the new MacBook set up first.

Continue reading "Sorted" »

Posted by Anne at 5:00 PM | Permalink

My MacBook arrived at 1pm today, and I'm posting this entry from Safari whilst I download some OSX updates - I decided to get some of the dull but essential stuff out of the way before I transfer my documents across from the iBook.

Continue reading "Here at last!" »

Posted by Anne at 6:22 PM | Permalink

My MacBook order was assigned a UPS number this morning, and so I phoned up to confirm that the delivery was still on schedule for Monday - which it is :)

On the Dvorak front, I am doggedly working through the drills in order to get the whole keyboard learnt as soon as possible. I'm skipping the speed drills, though - there's no way I can keep increasing my speed as well as learning a completely new layout (and unlearning the old one)!

Posted by Anne at 10:06 AM | Permalink

The MacBook is on its way (allegedly in Amsterdam being handed over to the European courier), and I have covered most of the home row in Dvorak now. Admittedly I'm finding it a bit difficult to concentrate on the drills with a couple of kittens running round the room! I've also gone back to posting on Forward Motion, Holly Lisle's writers' forum, as by spooky coincidence they are doing a Dvorak challenge this June!

Posted by Anne at 7:44 AM | Permalink

Well, I've decided to give Dvorak a go, just for the hell of it. I downloaded Master Key, a shareware typing tutor with Dvorak exercises, and so far I have completed the home row exercises. My plan is to get through the alphabet and punctuation as quickly as possible so that I can go "cold turkey" on the laptop at least, even if I have to stick to Qwerty at work until I'm more proficient at Dvorak.

Of course I'm writing this blog in Qwerty - I'm running on the remains of my second iBook battery, so I don't want to waste time!

Posted by Anne at 5:56 PM | Permalink

I just found a link to a very useful webpage (www.apecode.com/appletrack/) where you can track Apple shipments all the way from China. According to the system, my MacBook is now booked onto a flight from Shanghai, dated 27/05/06 - though it's not clear if that's when the flight is scheduled to leave or that's just when the booking was placed, what with China being ahead of us by several hours.

Posted by Anne at 3:51 PM | Permalink

To my delight, I just found out that my MacBook is now on its way. The bad news is that, according to reports on the web, new MacBooks are shipping direct from the factory - in China! Delivery date is estimated at 6th June; I shall try to curb my impatience...

Posted by Anne at 4:29 PM | Permalink

Following my Dvorak investigation yesterday, I loaded a file onto my Palm which would allow me to change the layout of my BT keyboard to Dvorak. I don't know if it was this file, or a BT bug reported on other OS5 units, but this morning my LifeDrive went into an infinite reboot loop, and the only way out was to hard reset it :(

As a result I have lost what little I wrote on the Palm this week - mainly some character mini-biographies - so now I'm having to rewrite them from memory. Anyone would think that the universe is trying to prevent me from getting this novel written!

Posted by Anne at 3:41 PM | Permalink

Whilst browsing Holly Lisle's site the other day, I came across her posts about switching to Dvorak for the sake of her RSI. Since I also get some problems after heavy use of my laptop, I'm thinking of doing the same. It's very easy to switch layouts on both OSX and my Linux box at work, and there are typing tutors for both platforms (KDE has a free typing tutor and you can very easily write your own exercises for it). The main problem I forsee is that I don't have much time to make the transition; unlike a student, I don't have several weeks' summer holiday when I can go "cold turkey" and abandon QWERTY altogether. Also, at the moment I am of course dependent on my Palm for a good deal of my computing, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change the layout of the onscreen keyboard.

Posted by Anne at 12:31 PM | Permalink

Having slept on it, I've decided on a compromise - I've ordered a MacBook direct from Apple at the ordinary education discount rate - not as good a deal as the HE discount, but it will ship a lot sooner and I can track it online, whereas if ordered through work I would have no idea when to expect it. The initial acknowledgement says 3-5 days to dispatch and 3-9 days to delivery - much better than the 6+ weeks option!

Continue reading "Replacement ordered" »

Posted by Anne at 7:44 AM | Permalink

I took my iBook in to Cancom this morning, and the cost of fixing the internal charger will be about 160 quid. Worse still, there may be additional, possibly invisible, damage to the motherboard, etc. Now I have to decide whether to spend a lot of money trying to fix it, or write it off and get a replacement (hopefully on our home insurance).

Continue reading "Write-off?" »

Posted by Anne at 12:40 PM | Permalink

Yesterday evening I found out that my iBook did not escape the bookshelf collapse unscathed after all :(

Continue reading "A nasty discovery" »

Posted by Anne at 8:18 AM | Permalink

Having decided to get back to writing seriously, I tried to open my old CopyWrite files, but they aren't being recognised! I don't know if this is because I moved them, or if it's an upgrade issue; fortunately each file is basically text wrapped in a bit of proprietary formatting, so I can get back the actual content if I need it.

In the meantime, I'm trying out SuperNotecard, which one of my fellow CWILers alerted me to...

Continue reading "New software - SuperNotecard" »

Posted by Anne at 4:47 PM | Permalink

I've been feeling too unwell to write much, so yesterday I decided to take a whole load of screenshots from the DVD of "Shakespeare in Love" for reference purposes. Apart from a few deliberate anachronisms, the film is visually very historically accurate, so much of it would not be out of place in my own books. However this was not as straightforward as I had expected.

Continue reading "DVD screenshots" »

Posted by Anne at 6:32 PM | Permalink

Started writing (albeit slowly), but got increasingly frustrated by the behaviour of my optical mouse, which seems to be sending multiple 'click' signals even when I am careful to click the button only once. I decided to try a trackball, which has the advantage of not needing to be moved around, so I can sit it on my lap tray next to the iBook. Rather than order online and wait several days for a delivery, I popped into town and bought one, but then got distracted by browsing the bookshops. Ended up buying a DVD of "Twelfth Night" and a book on "Playgoing in Shakespeare's London" as well!

Daily progress: 85 words :(

Running total: 25,083 words

Posted by Anne at 6:16 PM | Permalink

Took my iBook into work today (in case I needed tech support) and finished installing everything I need. I now have Apache, PHP and MySQL running, with MT and PHPMyAdmin; Firefox & Thunderbird; X11 and The GIMP; Palm Desktop for syncing the LifeDrive; and AbiWord for writing. Woohoo!

Posted by Anne at 4:29 PM | Permalink

Spend a large part of the day copying files from my old laptop over the WLAN to either the iBook (stuff I have immediate use for) or the desktop PC (stuff to archive). A tedious job, but necessary.

Posted by Anne at 3:17 PM | Permalink

Thought is the parent of the deed, as Thomas Carlyle put it. So today I went out and bought a G4 iBook (a refurbished Panther model, thus saving over £100 on the price) :D
I can see it will take some getting used to; I've only driven a Mac on a handful of occasions in the past 25 years, and not at all in the last five.
I also bought a copy of "The Reckoning: the Murder of Christopher Marlowe" by Charles Nicholl; a bit of Elizabethan intrigue should set the old imagination racing!

Posted by Anne at 5:53 PM | Permalink

If I'm going to be writing 2-3000 words a day, I need reliable technology that doesn't interfere with the flow of words. I currently have 4 options:

Continue reading "Good technology" »

Posted by Anne at 1:05 PM | Permalink