blog addict? moi?

12 Step Recovery Program For Blogging Addicts

1. I will have a cup of coffee or tea in the morning and read my PAPER newspaper like I used to, before the blog.
2. I will eat breakfast with a knife and fork and not with one hand typing.
3. I will get dressed before noon.
4. I will make an attempt to clean the house, wash clothes, and plan dinner before even thinking of the blog.
5. I will sit down and write a letter to those unfortunate few friends and family that are internet-deprived.
6. I will call someone on the phone who I cannot contact via the internet and resist the urge to ask them what they think I should blog about next.
7. I will read a book… if I still remember how.
8. I will listen to those around me about their needs and stop telling them to turn the TV down so I can hear my lastfm music.
9. I will not be tempted during TV commercials to check for email or to check my blog stats.
10. I will try and get out of the house at least once a week and socialize with people who do not blog, if it is necessary or not.
11. I will remember that my bank is not forgiving if I forget to balance my checkbook because I was too busy blogging for adsense pennies.
12. Last, but not least, I will remember that I must go to bed sometime… and that the blog will always be there tomorrow!

Hey, I’m already doing 3 (well, usually), 7 (a little every day!), 8 (what’s lastfm?), 10 (the ‘ladies’ are making sure of that) & 11 (got nothing to balance), so that means I’m okay … doesn’t it?

How about you?

~ swiped from timethief long after I should have been in bed ~

new external hard drive

It’s my latest gadget!

Met up with “J” yesterday (one of the ladies who do more than lunch) and we ended up over at my place. After a bit of vino and chatting she not only showed me how to organise my new iPod but she also convinced me that getting an external hard drive was much better than trying to back stuff up on CDs.

I mean, remember this post? I have not even attempted backing anything up since then. Just the thought of faffing about trying to find the right CD somewhere within the various boxes and then updating it, and repeating this painfully tedious process over and over again … well, nuff said.

And so after a very late lunch Nog and I went out for a walk to Fnac and I found this baby on special offer - 160 GBs for 70€. And it’s so small, just 12cm x 8 cm x 1.5cm. So I could actually carry around all of SB’s data in my handbag or jacket pocket if I wanted to. This is seriously cool.

Gosh, I just get more geeky every day.

on safari

Catching up over at Wandering Coyote’s yesterday morning I saw a post about Safari and realised that the update thingy I automatically downloaded from Apple the other day was actually Safari the internet browser - duh! I thought it was something to do with iTunes. I mean, I had heard of Safari before it just didn’t click at the time. So since I had this cute little Safari compass icon on my desktop I decided to check it out.

I switched over to Firefox from IE, oh, ages ago - can’t remember exactly when. And I love it. But I kept using IE for h2g2 because I prefer reading that site with a larger text size (and I didn’t want to keep switching text sizes on FF). But now I’ve got h2g2 set up on Safari and it’s fabulous. As a ‘back-up’ browser it’s much better and way cooler than IE.

So I was wondering how many of you out there are using Safari and if you can maybe give me some tips on some groovy-cool stuff it can do that I maybe haven’t come across yet. Or perhaps warn me about some of its glitches?

… in training

my latest heart’s desire

 

Gee, good thing I didn’t buy this one …

It’s Toshiba’s newest small notebook, “the world’s thinnest notebook series with an integrated optical drive”, which so far hasn’t made it to any of the shops here in Sevilla. Isn’t it gorgeous???

The 0.77-inches thin 2.4-pound Toshiba Portege R500 has 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 ultra-low voltage processor with 1.20GHz clock speed, 2MB L2 cache, and 533MHz front-side bus. This ultra-portable is based on Mobile Intel 945GMS Express chipset with the integrated Graphic Media Accelerator 950, which manages a 12.1-inch 1280×800 LED backlight “highbrightness” display. The R500 supports up to 2GB of DDR2 system memory and comes with 120GB 5400rpm SATA hard disk drive. A mentioned ultra-thin 7mm optical drive is a DVD burner.

Toshiba Portege R500 has Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (802.11a/g/n), Gigabit Ethernet and Bluetooth, but it doesn’t include a 56k modem. Toshiba’s new ultra-portable has PCMCIA card slot, Secure Digital slot, three USB ports, VGA output, Firewire, and a fingerprint reader.

Hmmm … not sure I’d ever need a fingerprint reader, but you never know. So as soon as I get that fab new job happening (c’mon guys, I’m counting on you) , the one that requires me to have an ultra-portable super-sleek notebook with me at all times, I’m calling up Toshiba.

backing up …

. . . in order to move forward.

But gaaaaaa! it’s awful! And yes I know, I know!!! that it’s all my fault for not doing computer backups on a more regular basis. But unlike with cleaning cat ears it seriously is not one of those things where the anticipation is worse than the reality (au contraire). The reality of backing up stuff totally sucks, especially when there is so much to catch up on. I hearby vow to do weekly backups if once I get finished with this lot.

How often do you back up your computer files?

more casa az screens

~ SB 17″ widescreen ~

   ~ Nog’s 15″ laptop ~  

~ Jaguar 15″ desktop ~

IE screens on the left, Firefox on the right, all using medium/normal text size.

Further to the previous post … this is getting a bit confusing but it seems the problem is using IE with a widescreen (I think nursemyra also noticed this on FFE’s blog). Since I’ve always used Firefox for my blogs I’ve never seen any difference, including when I switched from the Jag’s 15″ desktop screen to SB’s 17″ widescreen. And the same when I’ve used Nog’s laptop as I’ve never used IE for the blogs. But it seems that on IE things get all screwed up on the widescreen. I’m assuming that John’s problem with the text overlapping is because he is using a larger text size (though I don’t know this for sure).

It’s quite frustrating to discover that the layout on casa az is so unstable, especially when I take so much care with how I set it all up. Heck, since we can’t justify text here on WordPress I’ll even re-write text so that the margins look more even. And now I find out that everyone is seeing the blog totally differently.

So it seems my options are to either change to a theme that doesn’t go wonky on IE, or else maybe put up a notice (perhaps a static front page?) that informs people that the blog is best viewed on Firefox with normal-sized text. What do you think I should do? I’m not even sure if it’s possible to find a theme that works properly on all browser/screen variables. And besides, I really like this theme . . .

what does casa az look like to you?

~ click on pics to enlarge ~

I got an email from blog buddy John Pangia this morning letting me know that since he started using a widescreen laptop the layout on the casa az blog has changed for him (he sent me a pic of the screen - that’s his on the right).

I’ve always known that if you use a larger text size than ‘normal’ (Firefox) or ‘medium’ (IE) then the layout of this theme goes all wonky, but it also gives people with visual problems the choice of using a larger text. And I just assumed that most people would be using normal text size for internet browsing. But after getting John’s email I did a test on IE using medium sized text and my sidebar doesn’t start until half-way down the page (if I use the largest text option on IE the page basically becomes unreadable). So now I’m concerned that casa az is looking wonky to most people and that maybe I should change to a more ’stable’ theme.

And so, what does casa az look like to you? It should look like the pic on the left (with different width margins depending what kind of screen you have). Can you also let me know which browser you’re using and what type of screen you have? Thanks!

the internet crash!

Imagine if it were true!!!

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

blurb

This is very cool - check out Blurb Book Publishing

Blurb is a publishing company that allows you to publish your own books using their free BookSmart software. You can then print your book to sell, or just for yourself, and you only pay when you actually print the book.

I first saw this over on Ashish’s blog and he had this to say after trying out the software…

Blurb is essentially a book publisher, a marketplace, a community of author’s like you and a company providing tools for said author’s to create books all rolled into one. The highlight of Blurb is of course the free BookSmart software, which is available for free download. You just need to register, which is also free. The software is easy to learn and use, but make sure you do have the resources [which many modern computer’s will fulfill in a jiffy] needed to run the application. I might say that I barely meet the minimum requirements when it comes to memory but I had no problem. As for the creation process, a very helpful wizard will get you making your book before long.

Maybe I’ll dust off that old unfinished novel of mine (once again) and give this a go . . .

my inner geek

Desperately trying to get in touch with my inner geek!

It’s gotta be in there somewhere! Anyhow, this is by way of an excuse and an apology for ignoring my own and everyone else’s blogs these past couple of days. I’ve been trying to set up my new website and especially the tapa blog. And I wouldn’t have got anywhere at all without the help of the very generous and knowledgeable Ashish, who has been very patiently helping me re-design the tapa blog.

I now have it doing almost everything I’d like it to do, though we’re still discussing the sidebar and what to do with it. But I must say that it’s been quite interesting and also gratifying. When Ashish sent me some files to download/upload in order to rewrite some stuff … I was actually able to do it! Wow! I felt so proud of myself.

You can have a look and tell me what you think of it so far. The footer still has to be totally re-worked, and Ashish says he can switch the icons on the sidebar for me. It’s really been quite an experience and I’m looking forward to learning even more.

Thanks again for all your help today, Ashish!

~ the new sevilla tapas blog ~

(it’s quite an improvement over this one)