For those of you just tuning in…

Hurricane Ike ruined our place and we moved to a little complex where I lived about 15 years ago. I haven't had an ISP since then, and have been either using free hotspots, or um… borrowing bandwidth where I could. I'm not even sure if this place is wired for cable, and even if it was, fuck Comcast.

Like I said in the previous post, I'm using Cricket now. I like the speed, even if the bandwidth throughput is low, and I like the fact I can take it with me. Hell, once you have a couple hundred each boots from Dylan, Floyd, Beatles, Dead, etc – Do you need anymore?

In between, there's been gearing up for inventory at work, and then catching up from inventory. It's been busy. I'm not driving the big truck anymore, which is great, especially with summer coming up. I do miss driving to Corpus about once a month, but other than that, I prefer this situation.

Right now, I'm on vacation. Just been hanging around this past week, enjoying not having to get up early and head out the door. Next week, I'm going up the country to see my Mom and siblings. I'm sure by the time it's over, I'll be ready to get back to work.

In the meantime I've got the Definitive Edition (pre-remaster) Laserdisc box of the Star Wars Trilogy and the DVDs of all the Planet Of The Apes movies. It's gonna be a good day.

Finally back!

Got a new ISP this week.  Cricket.  It only allows 5gb throughput, so no heavy downloading.

Writing On The Screen

I'm a nut about accessories for my laptop. The first two things I bought for it were a wireless router (what's the use of having a mobile device without the mobility.) and a USB TV tuner. I've gotten several other things since then. Some worked out well. (5.1 external sound device), and some just plain would not fit into my usage habits. (Microsoft Fingerprint Reader- pretty much just supports IE. I use Opera unless absolutely forced to by certain websites. Good thing I got it cheap.)

I recently purchased a Vistablet mini graphic tablet. I have to tell you - it fucking ROCKS!!! The only problem is occasionally that I'll make some stray mark, or tap something that will make everything go apeshit. Learning where the sweet spot is on the pen nib is a bit of a curve. How much pressure to apply, etc.

0ptical Character Recognition (OCR) is something that has finally come into it's own. Unlike voice recognition, it has progressed to the point that even someone with terrible handwriting (such as myself) can use it with a minimum of extra editing. And support for it is built into Vista.

The software itself is pretty intuitive -If you've ever used auto-spellcheck, then you would be familiar with the interface. And, like voice recognition, the more you use it, the better it works to your unique style of writing. Now if I can only make it recognize my signature. (working on that.)

While I can't seethe graphic tablet completely replacing my keyboard and mouse, I do like the fact that I can use just one input device rather than "mouse type mouse type."

The software does have multi-monitor support. But then it divides up the usable real estate between monitors, only giving you about a 3 inch square area to work with on each. I prefer to use the mouse for the secondary monitor, since I usually have static applications (such as the TV tuner - something I'm not continually having to fuck with.) running on it.

Unlike my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, the handwriting is able to be free flowing, without the lag of translating it to text. The Nokia is so small, that for me, it's easier to use the stylus anyway.

 

Been awhile...

It's been a busy time and it's getting hotter'n hell.

Got a Nokia N800 internet tablet computer about 3 weeks ago. I'll try to be posting a bit more often, now that I can post from anywhere. (or at least I can write anywhere and upload wherever there is a wifi connection.)

I've gotta say, I love this thing. It's just slightly bigger than a deck of cards, has a 400mhz processor, 128 mg of ram, and will handle two 8mg sd cards. The screen is nice and bright. I'm going to try encoding video for it soon. It supports many A/V formats, so I'll have do some experimenting. Not really looking to use it for music - that's what the iPod is for.

On to other news...

A friend of mine's computer got hosed by a possible virus the other day. She asked me if I could do anything with it. I've decided to load Ubuntu on it. She's not a tech oriented person by any means, and this will come preloaded with all she needs. (Openoffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird.) I'm downloading the Ubuntu cd image right now. Should be an interesting project.

Cool, they unfroze me

Google seemed to suspect I was a spammer and wanted to check, so they froze my blog for a few days.  Can't be too careful.

Yet again, another long weekend.  Means more time to try to do all those things I've been meaning to get to.  Or just watch movies.  Set up 5.1 in the computer room last week.  It's been down since the desktop died in December.  (Another thing on the list - heal it or harvest it.)  In the interim,  I've gotten a few DVDs that I'd like to hear.

Another week, another 3 day weekend, ho hum

Went to Corpus again yesterday, and while I was in the truck somewhere between Victoria and Refugio, I realized something: I like Vista.

I got a laptop about 6 months ago with Vista Home Premium loaded on it.  At the time I wasn't all that happy with that fact, since there was no way I could legally downgrade to XP pro.  But after  all this time, I haven't had the nightmare problems I envisioned and I really like the features such as the window switcher and the organization of personal folders.  About the only thing I hate is the slow copying time for files.

SP1 is supposed to help with that problem, but I doubt I'll be getting SP1 anytime soon for 2 reasons. 1) Never install MS 1.0 ANYTHING.  2) I have a SigmaTel driver that no one seems to know how to update, since the company has changed hands about 3 times.