SharondaWoodfin.net

HotHardware.com: G-Point Mouse

"...the clueless of the world have an unprecedented opportunity to experience in plastic something they'll never touch in person, at least perhaps not without a valid Visa account."

via hothardware.com

Hello, 7! Hey There, 64!

After a short (depending upon one's perspective) hiatus, I'm back online. I went to Wal-Mart, today (along with Best Buy, Sam's Club, Toys 'R Us, and even Big Lots), and bought the cheapest computer I could find. I knew before I bought it that it didn't come with a monitor, that it had 2GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium. What I didn't realize until I'd been messing with it for a few hours is that it has a 64-bit processor. All I really know about that is that my best friend's boyfriend thinks it's a good thing, and that I hope my Wacom Bamboo will work with it.

So far, I've gotten rid of Norton, and replaced it with Avast; installed Firefox, NoScript, AdBlock, InFormEnter, Flash and Chrome; installed CCleaner and Google Notifier; uninstalled the e-Bay thing, Google Toolbar for IE, and Adobe Reader; and gotten Amazon Unbox up and running. I still have a lot to install and/or uninstall, and I still don't have a solid opinion on Windows 7, yet. It has some nice features, but I'm still adjusting to the look and feel, now pining away over both XP and OS 9.

The truth is that, after spending 5 or 6 years getting a computer the way you want it, it's a bit disquieting to have to start all over again, but I digress. And to digress further, the low point of my day came at Best Buy, when the guy trying to sell me a computer asked if I wanted anti-virus installed or if I planned to not go online. I hope that's not how Best Buy programs their sales force, 'cause seriously, dude, that's insulting. Bad false dilemma! No, no!!

Anyway, the good points about the new PC, thus far: Lots and lots more memory. Even with heavier system requirements, the performance difference between 2GB and the 512MB I was running on my old system is pretty damned obvious. I can carry the tower around with one hand, which is useful when I need to fiddle with the back of it. MP4s will play in Windows Media Player. Jump lists are handy, and I like the preview windows in the taskbar. Also, sticky notes! I haven't used them, yet, but I'm just ridiculously happy to have them!

Thanks to the folks who commented in my absence, and please, forgive the rambling. It's been a hard seven days. Take a bit of being cut off from the whole damned world, add in a bit of brand new temporary job (one that involves showing up twice each day, including once around 5:30 in the morning); learning to give insulin shots to a kitteh; several trips to the library; lots of stress; my first desperate yet sober trip to a local straight bar (which, it turns out, isn't completely straight); a sick dog; a sick mother; and hours spent at my desk smoking cigarettes and pressing buttons that don't do anything, and -- well, Hell -- I'll forgive myself, whether you forgive me or not.

More on lots of stuff, later (including all of the wild things that lurk in the woods just outside of town; things I didn't know about until just a week ago), once I've figured out the next several steps in whipping this shiny new system into shape.

P.S.

One *good* thing that came out of my unexpected disconnection: I took some time to read. You know, like books. The kind that fit in one's hands and smell really awesome. I read Joyce Carol Oates Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, and loved this quote:

"...you don't feel extremes of temperature when you're on a mission and your very life's at stake, those hateful bastards wanting to put their hands on you wanting to impose their plans on you, you'd rather die than surrender."

God, to be 14 again!

Scratch that. 14 sucked. But to feel 14 again, I'd willingly convert to an Apple IIe!

Yes, I Have NO Computer

I've had no computer for days. First the CD/DVD drive went wonky. The on the 15th, coinciding with the eclipse over India, my BIOS informed me that disk failure was imminent. I replaced the hard drive. Now, the power light blinks at me stupidly, and all I can say is "Thank God for portable Firefox!" Because public computers suck, the PCs at this library are slow (and have Netscape 7.1 installed, fer Pete's sake), and they're even slower running IE ('though even that is quicker than starting up Netscape).

I'd write more, but hey! My half-hour is probably about up, and I still have to find a cheap computer and make a choice between Vista Home Premium and Ubuntu.

If any of you people love me, you'll load up Netflix, put on a really good episode of Xena, and let me listen through the telephone. That, or find cheap computers online and e-mail me the links.

The latter option would probably be more beneficial, but the former would certainly be appreciated, if for entirely different reasons.

The Real Value of Social Networking

Some of my offline friends think that the internet is without value. Some of my online friends think that social networking is without value. I'm fond of both, and since I make money online, I'd never doubt the value of either. Today, though, I had the value of both driven home in a very different way.

A friend of mine died a couple of days ago. I found out, last night, that the funeral was today. That left me no time to find someone to sit with my dog, who -- because of his condition -- can't be left alone.

I tweeted about not being able to go to the funeral, but, apparently, didn't make it clear that time was the major factor keeping me from attending. Within a few minutes, I had an e-mail from a guy whom I'd met on Plurk (but who is also a mutual follow on Twitter), offering to wire me money, all the way from the UK, so that I could hire a dog-sitter.

I didn't take him up on his offer, and it wouldn't have helped me get to the funeral if I had. But it did make me tear up a bit, and it did reaffirm that, yeah, sometimes people are willing to help one another, just because they can.

When a social network can drive home that sort of message, its value surpasses things like traffic and sales, because faith in humanity will will always trump that which can be counted or calculated.

Google Caffeine is Leaving the Sandbox!

I guess this is a good thing? I've been using Caffeine for quite some time, now, and not using standard Google search, so I can't speak to any differences between the two. I liked Caffeine well enough to use it as my primary search engine, though, and that says something in itself.

I have to say that I'm surprised at Caffeine leaving the sandbox this quickly, given Google's notorious propensity  for years-long betas. I'm also a bit miffed that I'll now have to edit my Add to Search Bar settings (I've already hit that unavailable page twice this morning), but I can't say that I'm sorry to see Google willing to make some changes -- good changes, hopefully -- to what is undeniably a dominant algorithm.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 review - Mozilla Links

Without a doubt, the most significant addition is support for lightweight themes, also known as personas, that was previously only available with the Personas extension.

via mozillalinks.org

I'd be lying if I said that eye candy didn't excite me, but wasn't the original philosophy behind the extension-based model so that users could add what they wanted to Firefox, without the bloat of features they didn't need? Given that philosophy, how can anyone justify the inclusion of Personas over useful stuff like NoScript, mouse gestures, form-fillers, and ad-blocking capabilities?

Decorating for Halloween -- Geek Style!

Who cares what your house or your yard look like? Some of us never really look at those things, anyway. We're too busy staring at our computer screens.

But that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy a few spooktacular sites every time we turn on* our computers!

This is a current screenshot of my desktop:

The desktop picture (wallpaper, if you prefer) is from a collection by Tarik Castilho which is available from Pixelgirl Presents. The icons, all available from The Iconfactory, include spooky specimens from Corey Marion's Retro Masks (that's the top icon, which reminded me -- delightfully, I might add -- of a Casper the Friendly Ghost mask I had as a child), Anthony Piraino's Trick or Trash and Creeps, and Talos Tsui's Nimble Halloween folder set. The orange and black theme is Microsoft's own Zune Desktop Theme (careful, kids, that link's a direct download), which I use year-round, just because it's easier on the eyes than the themes that come with Windows XP.

A few more ghoulish GUI goodies that might tickle your trick or treat fancy include:

• Dave Brasgalla's Bad Moon desktop, Ravenswood Revisited, World of Aqua: After Dark and Haunted Hard Drives icons.
• David Lanham's Vintage Halloween icons.

Or, you could just check out The Iconfactory's entire Halloween collection of ghastly goodies! (Most of the listed items come from there, anyway, 'cause the GUI community, she ain't the same ghost she was before. [Cue Oingo Boingo!]).

*Yes, damnit. I DO turn mine off.

Google Voice: Wonderful Service, Alarming Transcription

A friend left a message in Google Voice for me, this morning.  This is what the message actually said:

"Hey, Sam! It's Reine! Just give me a call when you can! Bye!"

This is how Google Voice transcribed the message:

"Yes I am extremely give me a call when you can I."

Of course I called her back before I actually listened to the message! How could I not, after reading the transcription? When you see the word "extremely" combined with the phrase "call me", that's what you do. Especially when you're led to believe that whatever adjective your friend extremely is, it's caused her to lose all sense of sentence structure!