The Knitting Journeyman

Gathering Up One Thread At A Time As I Weave This Web Of Mine.....

Saturday, February 14, 2009

First Things First

I am not a Mac person. I have a love/hate relationship w my mac mini-- the ex got it for me way long ago for some completely unknown and bizarre reason (these days we look back and say--guilt--but who really knows w him--much less him knowing why he did it).
The only thing I really like about mac is I don't have to worry much about viruses--mostly.

One thing you ought to know about me is I am actually NOT very technologically savvy--nor do I have any desire to be so. I need access to the internet--I need to upload and edit my photos, which I then put on my external hard-drive to save--I need word processing. I can operate the entire Microsoft Office Suite--although it may take me a little bit on different lesser used aspects since i haven't used them since I worked w SBC (now AT&T). I plan to run my website through someone else's server--not through my own--at least when I start it--and then as I gain more confidence I can get my own server and learn how to deal with that.
Plus, I have been told we will be making our own movies and so we will need the ability to edit and so forth the movies--the same as we do the photos. My oldest dd has asked for a camera that takes movies and still shots for her birthday--and I've told her she personally is NOT getting one--but we will look into getting one for the family that she can use.
I've already started researching cameras, thanks to R, so, we're good there. I really do miss my old 35mm that the ex destroyed and pretty much dismissed as not his fault/not his thing afterwards (I get ticky about slights like this--it wasn't his so why should he care about anything? Now my dd has a book of baby pictures of herself--but my ds does NOT and will not unless I find all the old digital pics and start getting them printed for him).

Back to the whole computer thing.
I need internet, blogging and research. I need email. I need word processing. And I need to be able to edit pics and save them elsewhere.

I have never actually been really happy w the mac. Then again, I am not always happy w the pc either. But my mac has issues. In fact, in the past month I have to restart the thing every time I go near it due to its issues. And nope, it is not a virus. The big issue I have w mac is I have no one to go to to ask for help the way I do a pc--not to mention on a pc I usually know where to start looking when there are issues. Not w mac. The ex is the only mac person I know and even when we were on decent terms he pretty much ignored me and told me it was just me when I had issues. To note: the reason I have to restart these days is an interesting flippy buzzy noise--and the fact that everything fairly much freezes while jumping. If it were a pc--I'd say it's some virus. My mac assures me that this is not the case. So--I just growl at my mac and go on.

I am spending the day pulling everything off my mac and putting it on the external had-drive. Yesterday we upgraded the memory on my pc--and now my pc is a dream--so fast. So efficient. And it has all the programs I want--and I know how to get and where to get anything else I might want--and I can make it do what I want it to do instead of what it thinks I ought to do. (I'm running XP Pro--although I am looking at linux instead these days).

As soon as I figure out whatever the mail client issue is w outlook express, I will turn the mac off for good and never touch it again--well--ok--I will re-format the thing and sell it to the highest bidder, but that's about it.

One thing that really surprised me was how very fast the pc became--versus the mac--even though the mac is a couple years old.
I actually can't wait for my pc guy to come and show me what's wrong w the outlook express (whatever it is I am doing wrong, I am sure) and then I can change everything over to the pc--and I won't look back at all.

I am not sure on the magicjack thing. We think the boost in the memory will make magicjack work better, etc. We'll see. Thus far, I am not really that impressed. For $40 for a year of local and long distance service though it cannot be beat. And I rarely use it anymore, simply because I have stopped calling most people--because I work on the phone--I therefore HATE to talk on the phone--I've been like this since I worked for operator services in the 90s. I hate phones--I hate people--and SBC is the real reason behind all of that. I was a moderately nice person and was much sweeter and more trusting--and then I worked for SBC--and it may not be the customers who are to blame--but the managers at SBC--and the way they treated the operators as something less than human that made me turn and become bitter towards all man-kind.
Please do note--I was never really that in favour of mankind to begin with--but I didn't really have the bitterness towards Man then that I do now. I was far more trusting, open and innocent before I started to work for SBC. SBC killed that dead--and it only took a couple months to accomplish too--how sad is that?

As things stand I am going to see what else we need to do to get the pc up into condition running xp pro--and then I am getting my laptop and learning linux--if I keep magicjack, then xp has to stay--but if not--the pc will be linux when my year w magicjack is up.

Hmmm. I keep pondering the whole local/long distance telephone thing. And there is something here with me wanting to call overseas lately as well -- I am so not getting into that at the moment--but it's still there. Hopefully that means some old contacts are thinking of me--as well as new contacts who are about to enter my life--somehow. :-)

This is my computer update for the time being--have fun today.
Ciao.