MWNews 73

It is the middle of the night and I am working on something else, but I thought I would give this another try.

Seems I am finally able to upload pictures to the blog. As many of you know, or maybe none of you know, or maybe there is no one here to actually know, I lost my computer recently. It blew up or lost the ability to actually start. I think the problem is the power supply or the video card but as the computer is three years old and this is the second time this has happened, I opted to buy another computer instead of keeping the old one alive. It still sits on the desk as a sort of monument to to all the fun I have had in the past, but it no longer houses a hard drive and therefor, even if I wanted to fix it, it would not start.

For some unknown reason, I went and bought a Mac. Maybe it was the seductive curves or the clean lines and pretty pictures. Maybe I was seduced by the large screen and no actual computer box. Maybe it was because Juanita wanted one because it was pretty. There was no real good reason to buy it but I know how a 25 inch or 23 inch or whatever the biggest one they make is, sitting on my desk and I am typing on it now. Even the keyboard it different, very thin and the keys are very small and thin. I make typing harder, I think, but I have no proof of that.

Having no experience with or having never even signed on to a Mac, I can tell you that it is different. I have yet to find the part that is better, but it is different. Things are not where they would seem to be and I have no idea how or why they work the way they do. I can't say they are better, I cannot even say they are worse. I suppose I will get used to it but I keep trying to do things that would be normal for a PC but have no meaning or no equivalent action on the Mac. The simple act of closing a file does not seem to work as it puts it in the task bar and never really closes it. Maybe I am just doing it wrong.

I do like the way it installs it products. It tells you what to do once you run the appropriate install file. Most of them are .dmg files but that has only been my latest experience. Having installed thousands of applications on a PC, there appears to be the one method for doing it so far on the Mac. I suppose I will learn more about it as I go.

I seem to keep saying that a lot. I will learn more about it as I go. To be honest, I am almost to the point of installing Windows on the system and dual booting. Maybe later but I cannot even figure out how to uninstall an application. It appears to be just drag it to the trash can but I have no idea if that works or if I am just getting rid of icons. I bought a new external drive so I could store things on it, but when I told the Mac to backup the files to there, it uses the entire disk just for the backups. It says I can copy files to there also, but this supposed to be a bad idea, so now I think I have to buy another external drive just to keep for storage.

And just so I can continue the complaint thread, as we know, I do not have broadband connection yet for the house. Only this lousy Mobile phone network that varies in speed from non-existent to very, very slow. That has been the real problem with getting back into the blog in that all my pictures are on the new Mac and when I try to upload them via Safari, the Mac equivalent of IE, it times out before it actually sends the pictures. I finally had to download Firefox, something else I have never used, in order for it to stay active long enough to actually send a single picture. But one finally made it. Maybe it is because it is the middle of the night and there is no one to compete with, but it took all day to finally get the file sent.

Bottom line is, updates may not be as often as I would like. The amount of trouble it takes to try to get an new entry in place just may not be worth the hassle. We will just wait and see. I think I will have to take all my pictures to work and do it from there. One thing in Firefox's favor, it does seem to load a lot faster that Safari and it is a whole lot easier to use. After I learn more about it, maybe it will be a preferred browser. Maybe not.

So, this is supposed to be about the kids. Maeghan seems to thing she can use the computer so it is vaguely applicable that this is about her, but not really. She is not allowed to touch the new computer or she can only do it if she is sitting in my lap while she enter things. All she really knows how to do is click on things but she does know which ones to click on to make things work.

Speaking of working, I am about to have to do something over there so I will have to make this really short. And as I type, I am beginning to really hate this keyboard. But anyway, so quick news about the kids.

William spent a couple of days in the hospital due to some virus or something. He was running a pretty constant temperature for two days and they doctors never did figure out why. The sent him home and said if it did not clear up, to bring him back. He finally got over it after about a week but we have never found out what it might have been caused by. Maeghan or any of us never got sick so we are hoping it is over. There were a lot of sick kids at the hospital but most of them just have the flu or colds, William never had any symptoms other than the fever.

Maeghan had her school fete the other day. More like a garage sale than anything entertaining but we went and it was OK. Too hot and humid to really enjoy anything but the kids seemed to have fun.

She has been selected to something special in her ballet play. I am not sure what it is yet, but she has to go to extra practices each week to learn the routine. This is in addition to her extra practices for the normal class. We have film of last years but the battery on my camera only lasts for an hour and last years went for almost two hours. I only filmed the parts that had Maeghan in them but I think she will be involved in a lot more this year so I am going to have to find a way to plug the camera in while it is filming. Maybe I will do a better job than last year but the camera we have is not all that sophisticated so it does not do that great a job anyway.

I have to go now. Not only do I have to work, but typing on this keyboard really hurts. It is too flat to the desk and is not raised like a normal keyboard should be. How do all these Mac people do this and like it. Guess I will get used to it.

Until next time

Talk to you later