More Portability

Took Don Russell's advice (because he's got big fingers like mine) and got a netbook, an Acer Aspire One. Gotta say, I'm loving this little thing. Great battery life, keys are big enough (I kept hitting the number keys in the middle of a word at first, but I learned past that pretty quickly), so much lighter than my 16" Dell, good ports, and it fits more places (like on an airliner traytable even when the inconsiderate sonofabitch in the seat ahead insists on reclining the whole way back). I got a little carry case for it (probably should have gotten something a little bigger; the cord doesn't really fit in there...duh).

I'm liking the Windows 7 "Starter" that came with it, too; definitely getting the upgrade for this worthless Vista-install I've got. Then I downloaded Firefox and OpenOffice.org, which is working just fine for all I need.

Fits nice on a bartop, too.

Dodging the Bullet: anyone have advice?

I'm slowly getting back together from a PC collapse that almost dumped my data. I have the core of it backed up to an external HD, and probably could have recovered 85% of it from that, but it got me thinking about how much I'd lose if something happened to both the PC and the HD...which are less than a foot apart, plugged into the same outlet.

So, readers: do any of you have suggestions/experience with online backup services, like Carbonite or SOS? Like to make some suggestions? First thing I did -- already -- was make a DVD backup of the most important stuff -- writing, contacts, e-mail -- and I'm going to put that in our safe deposit box. But I want something quicker and automatic.

Thanks for your help.

Things That Suck II

Things suck again.

I won't be going to the Iron Hill Media fest this weekend; too much crap to do.

Somebody -- won't say who -- sucked down way too much of a really nice bottle of whisky -- won't say which -- without even noticing how nice it was. Cretin.

Miller Chill.

Maud's away overnight, getting 'the dog operation' at the vet.

There are still no bars within walking distance of my house.

It's raining. Again.

There is no brewpub in Newtown. But there is an Applebee's. Jesus wept.

Pennsylvania is finally non-smoking in bars, but there are way too many loopholes.

The PLCB still runs all booze in Pennsylvania, despite my best efforts.

Pollen hates me and wants to make me sick.

My computer's back, but I'm going to spend all day re-loading shite on it (You were right, Amy, damn you!), a process that's taking so long I'm here pissing and moaning.

I need a new phone, and no phone on the market has everything I want...and I don't really want that much.

I fell off Weight Watchers, and can't summon the will to go back. My problem, I know.

One good thing: Maud comes home in half an hour. Which will probably make the other things recede a bit. I miss my little dog.

Saint Joan

I'm back on the air again. My laptop, a Dell Latitude, has been great, I'm very happy with it, but when I came home from Denver last month...I couldn't connect to my home network. The damned thing saw my network, gave me reports on how strong the signal was, but refused to even try to connect to it. It was driving me nuts, and meant that I was banished to The Hole, my office in the basement with my main desktop (which holds my backup drives, all my writing from...ever, my pictures, all that jazz). Not all that bad, but I like to see the sun sometimes, or even the rain. I couldn't get anywhere fiddling with it, checking the 'Net for answers, all that jazz.

So I finally called my sister-in-law, Joan Childs. Well...actually, Joan is my brother-in-law Carl's wife; is she still my sister-in-law? No matter, she's a freelance computer consultant and probably the brightest bulb in the whole family. She's a sweetheart, too, and just dove right into the problem. And after three downloads, and a lot of "No, I tried that" and "Holy crap, I can connect to the neighbor's Linksys network but not my own!", she got me hooked up. Turned out there had been a Dell upgrade in the driver for my WLAN card to handle a Windows upgrade that dealt with the security layer on top of TCP/IP. She sent me a link, I downloaded it, and I was writing this post within five minutes. Thanks, Joan!