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

crackberry

 

Remember when I went to the AWC lunch?

Well, since then I’ve been staying in touch with Susan and Traci - two of the women who were sitting at my table. I’m going to be meeting Traci and her husband for tapas tonight at the new second location of Las Golondrinas (which I didn’t know existed until Traci told me), so stay tuned for some new photos soon.

And last Friday Susan and I met up early evening-ish for a few vinitos at Catalina. We had a great time and talked and laughed a lot … then what I thought was a mobile phone rang, but it ended up being Susan’s Blackberry. I’d never seen one in person before so of course Susan started showing me all the cool tricks she could do with it and, man, I’ve been hooked ever since and will start doing some research to see if I can justify getting one. Apparently these are also known as crackberries because of their addictive qualities.

But at least Susan is about to help out with another addiction. She is leaving for a ten-day trip to the States today and has agreed to be my popcorn mule and bring me back lots of Orville’s. There was talk of duct-taping packets to her 4-year-old daughter to elude customs and we’ve also got code names now. It’s been awhile since I’ve had RL girlfriends - I’d forgotten how fun it could be. Especially little things like sending each other silly emails and having a laugh over a glass or two of wine. I’m so glad I went to that lunch!

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!

how geeky are you?

My score is 12.82051% (Geekish Tendencies)

I didn’t really expect to be more than somewhat geekish. And just finishing this muthah points to having at least some geekiness. But it’s a good excuse for not getting out of bed on a chilly Sunday morning (and some of the questions are pretty funny).

Geekish Tendencies………………….≥09%

Geek………………………………………….≥15%

Total Geek………………………………..≥25%

Major Geek……………………………….≥35%

Super Geek……………………………….≥45%

Extreme Geek……………………………≥55%

Geek God…………………………………..≥65%

Dysfunctional Geek……………………≥75%

Take the Geek Test

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)