Instant Starbucks has been promised for months. Now it seems to have arrived. I am underwhelmed. Contempt prior to investigation.
This morning Carlton made a major financial contribution to the new Apple Computer, hereinafter known as the Carlton Computer. Hopefully it will be more reliable than the HP Vista Whore Machine. Heck, the Carlton Computer was more reliable right out of the box. The HPVWM wouldn’t even bootup out of the box.
I entered 584 flu shot records in the computer this morning. We gave another 250 or so that don’t go in the computer. And, then tomorrow is another day of flu shot giving. And then – I suspect – we will run out of flu shots.
Our little staff in employee health gave over 800 flu shots today. Of course I didn’t shoot anyone. Just fetched supplies. Tomorrow – I’ll warm up my fingers for a “little” data entry. Then we do it all over again on Wednesday. At this rate we’ll be out of vaccine by Friday. Which will not cause me any problem – but it might upset folk who missed out. That is why a work for free. Not my problem.
Been thinking about my iPods. Yes, I have two – and still use both. An old “classic” and a “touch”. I could and might sync my “classic” with the Mac. But, the touch is a different story. It has lots of data in it that are tied to the apps. And I am as yet unsure if the data can be safely migrated to the Mac.
For dinner – after a long day of volunteering – we are having butternut squash with chicken sausages.
nothing at all going on today. not a bad thing, mind you. just sort of dull. sort of like the ken burn’s national parks pbs show. i can not even rouse myself to hit the shift key. shades of archy and mehitabel.
Last night I wasn’t asleep. Us old folks are always bitching about not being able to sleep. Well, last night – when I wasn’t sleeping – I went out and sat on my porch. Guess what? There were lots of young people outside. Walking around, talking, get cabs, etc. They were not asleep. I bet they were not going to be bitching about not sleeping well today. When I was young, I considered sleep a huge waste of time. I don’t remember ever saying “Gee, its Friday night – guess I’ll snag some zzzz’s” Enough already about not sleeping. Plenty of time to sleep when I am dead!
It has been a week since the Mac followed me home.As you can see from the picture – it is very thin. But, it has a nice solid feel. (I just noticed that the iPod Touch and the $199 Dell are in the picture as well.)
This morning I tossed WINE on the Macbook. Several times a year, I need Dreamweaver. Just to tweak something that I created years ago. With Ubuntu, I discovered that my elderly version of Dreamweaver works good enough under WINE. And, it works good enough with the Mac version as well. So much for banning all things Windows from the Mac. (Except for two mouse buttons, of course.)
I think I have a bladder infection. What do you expect – after they shove a periscope up your pipe? Went back to complain to the doctor. They gave me a ‘script for Cipro. I picked the drugs up. I still haven’t taken any. I made a mistake – I read the warnings that came with the drugs. Why am I all of a sudden being concerned with “side effects”?
Maybe it isn’t an infection. Maybe I’ll get better just as fast as I got worse. Maybe horses can fly. I have never gotten over a bladder infection without drugs. Last time I got a bladder infection – I ended up in the hospital. Maybe there are worse things than side effects.
I think I have most – and maybe even all – of my iTunes transferred to the MacBook Air. Still haven’t decided about which system to used with my iPods.
One of the thing that is supposed to make bladder infections feel better is to put a heating pad on your lower abdomen. When I was younger, I used my cat. Today, I am using my MacBook. It really doesn’t get very hot. Sort of cat temperature. According to the computer it’s bottom is 98.6 degrees F.
The procedure wasn’t nearly as bad as expected. And, the doc couldn’t find anything in need of repairs.
My mammogram from last week was OK.
My MacBook Air read and writes my external Sony DVD Drive.
My wonderful much loved Microsoft blue tooth mouse – who has been out of service since the HP Vista Whore toasted its mother board – My dear blue tooth mouse fired right up with the MacBook. And it RIGHT CLICKS too. What is with the lack of right click? I guess it is a mac thing. Well, not all things Microsoft are bad. Two mouse buttons are better than one.
I removed some of my audio books from the iTunes library and am going to try to migrate it over to the Apple. Well, see what happens.
I am coming to realize that the Mac OS really is just a very finely crafted, limited edition, Unix system. Nothing special under the hood. But, unlike the various Linux ports – one does not have to go under the hood. At least not on a regular basis.
Ok, we have the $199 pickup truck Dell computer which dual boots Ubuntu and XP. It has 500gig disk drive. Is slow as can be. Has no bluetooth or wireless. As of now the work is divided up as follows:
Online stuff – Ubuntu (except for iTunes)
Personal record keeping and finance – Ubuntu (except for taxes)
The Paperless Project – Ubuntu
Photo catalog – XP
iTunes – XP
DVD collection and copies – XP
Taxact software – XP – but last year’s version did run fine under WINE. But, the fonts were funky – so, I copied it over to the XP side for the final tweaks and printing.
Downloadable audio books from the library – XP.
Travel – the little Fujitsu U810 with Ubuntu. This boy will be retired to the closet shelf.
At this instant the new $$$ MacBook Air’s only function is “Travel”.It has a 128gig solid state disk.
Still basking in the glow of my new computer – I think I would like to move the personal record keeping and finance over to the MacBook Air. Not a problem – Open Office is running fine on the MBA. And my records don’t take up much space. The MBA isn’t connected to the printer and my old printer doesn’t network very well. But, I can print to PDF’s and use the Dell to any actual printing.
I would like, I think to move iTunes to the MBA. Which would require converting my iPod touch at least to a Mac iPod. That is a little spooky. Also, my tunes library is lavish. 35gig – takes up a lot of disk space. But, if I don’t do the conversion – well then my Touch can not be tweaked when I am traveling. I can still download apps and single songs – but no books or movies. I can live with this.
The photo catalog is just too big for the MBA. Some day I absolutely must finish the never ending photo organizing project. At this instant I have done 2000, 2001, 2005, and 2007.
If the MBA were connected to the scanner it would do a good job handling the Paperless Project – but we have the space problem.
The DVD business involves some highly suspect Windows software. It might run under Bootcamp. I might should spring for a copy of XP.
So, this is how I see things evolving… For now the MBA will be the Travel Toy and maybe the personal finance computer. Long range, I see replacing the Dell pickup truck with a Mac mini or iMac with lots of disk space. And run Bootcamp for the DVD’s and library audiobooks and using some flavor of Windows. This is sort of like the old Soviet Five Year Plans.
Also need to look into some sort of external drive action for the MBA.
Sunrises and sunsets can be great around this time of this time of the year here in the city. As I recall, they were also very nice in the winter. I wouldn’t know. I do know that the sunsets in Hawaii can be lovely in the winter.
An all around nice last day of summer. Fall begins on September 22, 2009 at 5:18 pm EDT.
Yesterday, I walked down to the apple store. Warmed up my plastic and walked back home with a few groceries from Whole Foods and a mac-in-the-box. Hey that is it – the MacBook Air is the Whole Foods of computers. Or maybe Whole Foods is the MacBook Air of grocery stores.
Less than 30 minutes after walking in the door the Mac was on the kitchen counter all ready to use. It would have been a quicker process – but I had to stop and make a pot of coffee.
now what?
Yesterday, I installed some open source programs that I can not live without. And today, I connected it up to my external Sony DVD drive and installed the “new improved” Snow Leopard OS. That took about 30 minutes and actually gave back some disk space.
I am going to try really hard to not install any Windows stuff on this machine. And, I need to develop a plan. Which operating system is going to do what?
figured out how to take a picture of myself with the new computer
The MacBook Air followed me home from the Apple Store today. So far, so good. This is not a sensible practical computer. My $199 Dell desktop is like an old pickup truck. Most “mainstream” laptops are like SUV’s. Netbooks are Toyota Corollas. This thing – this thing is like an old Alpha Romero Spyder. All style and flash and absolutely no practicality. Hopefully, it will be more reliable than my Alpha’s were.
I installed my three must have apps. Boys and Girls, in apple land one downloads the desired application and then you drag it to a Application Folder. That is all. Where is the excitement? Where is the drama?
Tomorrow, I’ll see if my external DVD works with this computer. And, I’ll try to figure out what version of the operating system I have and what I need to do to back it up, do a clean install, etc. All those techie things.
After today’s volunteer stint. And after today’s mammogram. I went down to the Apple Store. The top of the line Macbook Air costs $250 more than a “refurbished” one from Apple’s online store. I am having a little cooling off period.
Why did I decide on the Apple. Well. The Apple Store. If I pay top dollar for a computer, when it fails to perform. When it melts the motherboard like the Vista Whore Machine did – I want to go down to the Apple Store with the offending hardware, slap the computer down and say WTF to a real human person.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with my cheapass Ubuntu system. Made from a TV, mouse salvaged from the Vista Whore, wonderful old IBM keyboard from the trash room, and a $199 reconditioned Dell box.
But, we are planning on 4 months in Kona this year. And, I am planning on doing some serious wandering next year. I need a solid travel buddy. One that doesn’t require me to have a personal relationship with the command line. One that will not catch a virus in McDonald’s in a college town in the south of France. (Of course, I had my shields ups) One that will not kill off it’s operating system in Hawaii. (I never figured out if that was a virus or just bad computer karma.)
And, yes, I decided that I can live with 3 operating systems. I have enough brain cells left to welcome a new OS into the family.
The Macbook Air does not have a kensington lock slot. Might have to figure out how to make the thing look less desirable. Sort of like the urban trick of spray painting your bike black and duck taping it’s seat.
