Just wanted to mention two quick items: The first being that, by the time I got my lovely pink netbook I had forgotten the login and password for my livescribe online login. I was perplexed, I was put-out, I was pretty upset (anyone want to supply a "p" word for that last?).

Worried, I wrote to the tech support folks at livescribe and within 24 hours (would have been sooner if I checked email more often) was all set up to use the netbook with my pen and upload as desired to the web. So a big THANK YOU and thumbs up to the folks at livescribe.com for helping me and being ready to run interference on even the little things.

The other item about Livescribe is that I used it ALL DAY on Saturday to take notes at a conference I attended. Three hour-and-a-half sessions of workshops. I normally use it for lectures at the college, and did use it on the two-day retreat, though the format there required less writing so it wasn't a big deal. It worked just as well for the extended use two days ago, with a caveat: the barrel is just too big around for my hand. Just so you know, from base of the palm to the longest fingertip, my hand is 6" long; four inches side-to-side. I think the people who designed the livescribe pen must have standard adult hands... longer and wider. By the end of the day, my writing hand was cramping quite a bit. I will write to them about this.

My hope is that a subsequent version will have a narrower barrel, with a softer gripping end so that all-day use is more comfortable. I would even be happy if the pen had less memory (it holds 2G) just so I could use it longer in the day. I would also, though this is probably highly individual, like to see it offered in pink...

This was posted also at stidmama.com.

This is Jupiter, with the four moons clearly set in a line, two on each side! The first two were taken with the 2.5 mm lens, the last with 25 mm lens on the telescope.







The nittygritty of the last night's astronomical adventure: We used our new Nikon Coolpix S230 10 Megapixel 3x zoom ISO 2000 with vibration reduction. I held it up to the eyepiece of the telescope with the flash off and no zoom; I did not speed up or slow down the shutter speed. This method works best when the eyepiece is more stationary... the telescope is a bit shaky because it's portable so the camera shakes. Even with vibration reduction, when the magnification increases, it's noticeable. The final picture in the set of three was taken with higher resolution lens on the telescope, and most of those images were too shaky -- even with the relatively fast shutter speed of the camera, in some images Jupiter looked like a neon squiggle.

About the refraction telescope: It is a Telestar by Meade that we bought last year for the family. first lens: 25 mm; second lens: 2.5 mm. The increase in size made it much nicer to view with the eyes, but a lot harder to get a decent picture. It also makes it more challenging to aim the telescope (a task I left to the more adept teens). It's a nice telescope for our purposes. And as you can see, we were quite excited to get four moons showing up so beautifully!

Finally, if you want to try this yourself. Jupiter seems to be "up" around 9 or 9:30 pm where we live, almost directly south (slightly south-east now). We took these pictures between 11 and 11:30 or so. I can't tell you how far above the horizon because that's not visible, but I can say it's a couple degrees higher than the 100+ foot trees about 100 feet away on the neighbor's property.

So it has been a month since I got my little netbook. For the first couple of weeks, I pretty much used this just for email. And then, as I gained more confidence in its abilities, I added more and more of my favorite (freeware) programs.

Someday, I hope to be able to pay the wonderful developers, but for now, I will mention the programs I run in the hope that someone else will discover them and be able to pay a little bit.

I use crimson editor for html (now it's emerald editor). A google of either term will take you to Sourceforge.net where you can search on either name and find it.

I like irfanview for basic photo editing and such; it's quick, it's small. That's at irfanview.com.

And I use paint.net for a paint-style program and more complicated photo editing. That's at getpaint.net.

Of course, we use firefox and thunderbird, both available at mozilla.com.

For FTP and such, I have filezilla from filezilla-project.org.

And there is picasa, again of course, that from google.com.

And Tom has suggested I try Foxit Reader as an alternative to Adobe. foxitsoftware.com

I really love this little machine and so far everything that I have loaded runs just fine.

Of course, the games playbabble.com, quote-puzzler.com, and puzzlepirates.com also work. This screen is a little too small to render the entire puzzlepirates "popup" window that it runs in, so it's cut off a bit at the bottom. Otherwise, it works just fine.

The upgrade I am waiting for is turning 1G RAM into 2... Tom has ordered that and I should have it soon. That will speed things up a bit in terms of not needing to swap out as much.

Oh -- the battery is GREAT. I have the bigger battery, and easily get 4-5 hours continuous use unplugged.

I miss having a manual dial for volume control, but now that I understand how to use the function buttons it's not horrible.

I haven't tried the onboard camera or microphone yet. Have been too busy!

So, for me, this little netbook does exactly what it is supposed to do. I can type easily now that I know where the buttons are, it loads the types of media I use quickly and doesn't crash, and (JOY) it has a screen that is matte so it's doesn't glare.

A resounding FOUR goods on this little machine!

I have been lobbying for a smaller, tablet-style computer for school for some time now. While researching similar ideas for my mother who travels a lot, I read up on the new HP 110 series. Finding them in the stores, I was always impressed with the feel of the keys, the way the screen looks and the fact that it weighs less than my purse.

Today, we got a PINK HP 110-1037tablet. I will blog more extensively later (the Phage Biology meeting will be over in two weeks), but so far I like it.

For grad school notetaking, I needed something portable, and for power I can use the desktops on campus or at home. And yes, I still have (and love) my LiveScribe pen, but sometimes the ability to type is just as necessary.

And yes, to save time and just to get something "up" I am cross-posting between stidmama.com and LiveJournal this time.

LiveJournal automatically alphabetizes the tags I put on posts... so much for my reputation as observant!!!

Since I have actually been accepted to a Master's program, I am in the market for a new laptop. I need something that is lighter than the Toshiba Satellite (which needs some repairs, then will become a kid computer); hopefully it also be faster and have better battery life; and probably one that runs Windows programs so I can better interface with the programs used in schools. I will be researching this over the next few months.

About the G1: I still like it, but there are a couple annoying things that I wanted to mention, now that I have more experience with it. I don't like the location of the volume rocker. When I hold the phone, to speak or to type, that rocker is exactly where my hand wants to fall. If it were on the top of the phone, I would be less likely to bump it. I wish the phone's top half slid up entirely, the way it is, I have trouble getting my right hand into position when I want to type. And finally, It would have been nice to have some sort of number pad on the phone when it is in closed position or in use as a phone; I can't count the number of times I have had to listen through the entire voicemail message of someone because I didn't have the phone open to expose the numbers!

Did I mention I got accepted to the Master's in Teaching program? The Evergreen State College has a lovely campus, with quirky buildings. A MAJOR problem with the buildings is that they started their first building in the early 1970s with a concrete theme, and have continued it even through the newest seminar building. They are gray and dismal in the winter, and throughout the year cellphones rarely work in the buildings. In fact, in a few buildings, even the open wi-fi on campus is dodgy... I can accept that the oldest buildings - constructed even before personal computers were available - have problems, but to perpetuate it in the new buildings was just silly! So I don't give out my cellphone number to very many people because right now it doesn't catch a signal half the time!

Yes, I have entered the cellphone era. I have a cool, nifty, does-everything-but-clean-the-house, googlephone to help me stay in contact with my children and their schools while I am running about being a student(T Mobile is the carrier).

So far (this is about three weeks of ownership), I love it. It has the ability to upload and download data from almost-literally anywhere, through the (extra fee) unlimited data plan. I can check email using the wifi on campus, even when the cell signal doesn't get through the walls of the buildings! I can instantly grab new applications for the phone whenever and wherever I have a wifi or cell connection and I do! I found GPS devices when traveling with the stidkid last week, for example, and installed tideapp.com last night.

I like the actual physical keyboard, it's a little cumbersome and I don't always get the right keys, but generally for my small hands it's fine. I think a person with bigger fingers would find it more challenging. It doesn't have a touchscreen keyboard like Tom's ipod, and I have read some reviews that prefer that style. My G1 does have a touchscreen, however, and I am learning how to make it work. I like the way it scrolls, am a little frustrated by the problem of figuring out how long and hard to "tap" or press to select items. I like that there are additional options available through the menu buttons, and that I can dial without the keyboard open.

We got the "my faves" plan, so I have unlimited phone calls to and from Tom, the children and my mother -- I don't have unlimited minutes otherwise, so am not giving out the number (though the allowed minutes are generous) just on principle. Perhaps later.

All in all, it's a rather expensive toy, though has already come in handy.

I definitely recommend this to people who can use internet connectivity when they are "out and about."

This is really really really nifty-neato cool.

Last quarter, when I was taking more than a full-time load, I typed all my notes. During lecture. Until tendinitis set in and I just couldn't keep up the pace. My note-taking suffered!

So I did some research on audio recording for lectures, and found Livescribe.

It writes, it records, it downloads. It records the exact marks you make in the notebook! There is even an available transcription tool (30 day free trial then a reasonable price). You can speed up or slow down the playback speed. You can even click on any portion of the downloaded graphic file to skip directly to that part.

What it doesn't have is a way to edit the audio files -- a few times I have accidentally left the pen on and recorded a lot of garbage. Would be nice to a) pare down the space and b) get through the file quicker when I am trying to review the material. I suspect that is in the works.

You do need the special paper/notebooks, and can print some up on a postscript dot-matrix printer, but to be honest a half-time program used less than half a notebook this quarter. And the notebooks are not THAT expensive. If you use the pen to write on regular paper, it won't record the images of what you write, but you would get the sound.

The pen itself is somewhat large to hold, but not horrible. A person with bigger hands probably wouldn't notice. There is a microphone built in to the barrel of the pen, but I highly recommend using the included headphone/mic set. The mics are built into the earbuds to capture stereo sound. I usually just let them dangle over the edge of the desk or drape them around my neck when I am taking notes. They are not comfortable in my ears. If you don't use the headphone mic, then the pen picks up its own scratching which is irritating on playback (and can totally obscure the sounds you really want to record!).

You can mute the mic so it doesn't catch the ambient sounds if you just want to take notes and don't care about the actual words or sounds. You can pause the recording. You can add "bookmark" stars as you take notes to be able to skip ahead quickly to the important bits when playing back the audio.

You can even upload your notes and audio from your own computer to the internet. Each pen comes with its own ID that allows you to access their website. For free. Some very clever people have done remarkable, animated clips!

There are more features, but only a couple actual bugs. The really upsetting one is that periodically the pen seems to just turn itself off during the lectures. Which is annoying because my class this time incorporated a lot of music and storytelling -- which is not a note-taking situation but would have been lovely to be able to review. It could be that it is getting bumped and accidentally turned off. Either way, it's inconvenient so I have developed a nervous habit of looking at it every five or ten minutes to see if it's still on.

Overall, if you are taking courses where the actual content of lectures might be something you want to review in the future, and you would like the speech keyed to your actual notes, this is the tool for you.

Full-time plus now on the college front... and with the kids in school and my volunteer schedule, I get little time to just "hang out" on the computer the way I did a couple years ago.

Techdate: about the college's registration system.

It's Klugy, awkward, hard to use.

I thought I had registered for the class I wanted, only to find out several days later that I hadn't. The registration is now ENTIRELY online, registration only handles non-matriculated things, and I suppose would do something for folks who don't use computers. By then the waitlist was closed... fortunately I'd had to ask for help the first time, and they remembered me so we were able to work something out.

Still, you'd think that there would be something to let an experienced computer user know "registration failed" if that is the result of thirty minutes's work.

I don't like that EVERYTHING (practically) is done online these days. Notes come from my children's school -- by email only. Emergency notices are done online or by email. My school does the same thing.

What about a phone call? An actual letter?

I appreciate the resulting diminishment of recycling I need to send out, but I have actually missed things that were well-hidden on a website that was laid out by someone who thinks VERY differently than I do about organizational things. I have occasionally missed an email that disappeared, either into the ether, or the spam filter.

Anyway, I like computers for many things. BUT NOT FOR EVERYTHING.

I saw on Yahoo's news that there was a vulnerability found in firefox pretty quick... but it applied to the old version as well as the new. I know they will get a patch soon, but it's a little sad to have all the hoopla and then get this the first day.

Go to Yahoo's story, and rest assured, as soon as firefox has a patch, they will let us know.

Completely unrelated, I am now enrolled in college again, so posts here which have been irregular may be even more so for a while. Or, depending on how the studies go...

I sat down at the computer at 8:00, remembered at 8:03 that today is DOWNLOAD DAY, and by 8:06 (with a quick pause to read news headlines before shutting down the old firefox) had downloaded and installed the newest version of Firefox...

Yes, it was that easy.

Get yours here!

More extensive tech notes later, if anything seems really impressive to my dabbling geek attempts.

Tomorrow, June 17, is the official release date for Firefox 3.

You can check out information about this browser (our family has been using firefox for years) at their website, Spread Firefox.

This new look is "Pastel Spring/Flexible Squares by Yati Mansor."

A little more feminine, a little more regimented, we'll see how this one works for a while.

Well, I decided to get a regular WordPress login, and in the process I also got an OpenID; actually, I apparently already had several OpenID accounts, without knowing it.

Because I decided to get a WordPress login, I was eligible for (yet another) free blog. So I took it. stidmama's other space will be reserved for my reflections on wordpress topics. I will cross-post any techdates on that subject here as well as there. Other tech topics will continue to be discussed here.

The first post on that site is first impressions of the free blog and its dashboard.

I am not yet sure about the OpenID things... will have to explore that more and let you know at a later date.

My friend who I blogged about several months ago (see the original post here) has finally made the move from Blogspot to WordPress on a free domain host. And is looking to find a paid domain host.

Naturally, I recommend Dreamhost, which has worked well for us and seems pretty much average for pricing.

What works for us?

Well, to start, they have reasonable rates: about $11/month if you pay monthly (with a $50 set-up fee), or if you can afford a one-time lump-sum, a ten-year commitment breaks down to $5.95 a month with no set-up fee. And gradations in between, of course. Paying once a year saves $12 over the monthly fee.

I like that the support is available by email 24 hours a day. I like that you start out right away with 500 GB storage and that it increases 2 GB every week! Same with bandwidth. You start out with a very generous 5 Terabytes, and it increases weekly by 40 GB. A bonus for loyalty.

Of course I like that their servers run on Linux (Debian) and that they have the option for people to "reserve" a dedicated server rather than shared ... but I would need to make a LOT of money from my website to justify that expense! But if you really do make money from your website, then a mere $395 a month buys you your own server... (no, I didn't forget a decimal).

I should also point out that the time or two that I needed to look at the nuts and bolts end, the web panel they provide is easy to navigate and understand. Usually (99.9% of the time) Tom does all the behind-the-scenes work for me.

There are other features and such, more or less standard and/or required.

So, I give this dreamhost a solid approval rating.

You can check them out for yourself at dreamhost.com.

Well, I thought it was time to post something about one of the few things I actually feel competent in... blogging. More specifically, backing up your blogs. Something I advocate, but like most people, don't do often enough.

I can do a bit of HTML, CSS -- mostly tweaking other people's code if it's a very long or complicated project. [But I am proud to say that my story site and business site were all my own work, with the exception of snippets of Java for email]

And I have had this LiveJournal (LJ) blog for about a year and a half -- and distinctly remember backing it up once before. Perhaps it didn't annoy me because there weren't so many entries? But I realized as I was getting ready for the WordPress update (and pulling the entire blog -- several hundred entries -- in one smooth move) that I needed to go ahead and do this for all of my sites. Figured I would start here, as good a place as any.

Well, the first step in doing a backup is to find the backup utility.

So, I went to the navigation bar that is at the top of the page and scrolled through the options.

• "Home" just takes me to the main information page with updates on who has posted what and the latest news from LJ.
• "Journal" gives me a set of options from posting to managing -- but no backup
• "Profile" is just stuff about me
• "Friends," "Communities," and "ScrapBook" were outside chances and empty ones
• "Explore LJ" could have been promising, but it's really just the social networking bit

No -- it took me over an hour to figure out where in the FAQ (pronounce that any way you like) the information on a backup was. Had I realized that the little search utility in the top right of the page allows one to search the FAQ it would have been faster. Still -- to not have a link to back up one's work in the area one usually posts seems a bit peculiar.

Then, once I arrived at the correct FAQ, the entry reads..

How do I download all of my journal entries?

Download your journal entries with LiveJournal's Export Journal page, certain downloadable clients, or your web browser.

Not particularly helpful, unless you are a complete geekly person. I did follow the handy link to the "Export Journal" page.

There, I discovered that one must download month-by-month. Wow. That could be tedious for a long-term blogger, especially one whose last backup took place only a few months after joining...

It was -- tedious. Took a little more than 20 minutes to download to the computer. Now I need to copy the files over to the server that hosts my regular domains where I have oodles of space...

Oh -- and now that I have added this entry to the month, I really should back it up again...

So, my advice to all you bloggers out there -- set a regular date (maybe the first blogging day of each month) to back up the previous month's work.  Especially if you blog frequently.  I would recommend a weekly schedule, but LiveJournal only does month by month.  Of course, you could just take the month-to-date each time and write over the previous file.

I think I shall take the "first of the month" approach, myself.

We use WordPress for our family blogs, including stidmama.com. The current version is 2.3.3. I like the way it functions, I like the fact that I can tweak the css and layout a little bit behind the scenes without having to set everything up myself. I like that it's free... and I like the customizable anti-spam and other features that can be added. It's a nice, solid application that as far as I can recall hasn't caused us any significant downtime since we started using it several years ago.

Apparently, version 2.5 was supposed to be available this past Monday, but the development team felt there were too many bugs to bring it out of Beta. Which is fine with me, since I am not completely clear what I need to do before the upgrade. I am curious to find out if the upgrade will make any difference to me -- if the interface or function will be much different. Of course, Tom handles putting Wordpress and any additional things (skins, plug-ins, etc) on the server for me, and all I need to do is use the Wordpress dashboard to set things up.

I did a complete backup of stidmama.com the other day, and will do yet another when the next version goes live before Tom does his magic. But apparently there are some other things that would be good to do also, which I admit I am not completely sure about.

Here is the (somewhat edited for brevity) list of steps that WordPress suggests:

1. Backup your database. not sure if this is what I did, or #2 -- need to ask Tom
2. Backup ALL your WordPress files in your WordPress directory.
3. Verify the backups you created are there and usable. This is essential. again, not sure how to do this, will have Tom take a look.
4. Deactivate ALL your Plugins. um.... how? and what exactly is a plugin? Do I use any??
5. Ensure first four steps are completed. Do not attempt the upgrade unless you have completed the first four steps.
6. Download and extract the WordPress package . The rest of this list is pretty much Tom's domain, up to #13...
7. Delete the old WordPress files on your site, but DO NOT DELETE * (a whole bunch of things)
8. Upload the new files from your computer's hard drive to the appropriate WordPress folder on your site.
9. Run the WordPress upgrade program and follow the instructions on the screen.
10. Update Permalinks and .htaccess.
11. Install updated Plugins and Themes.
12. Reactivate Plugins
13. Review what has changed in WordPress.

Now, remember I am a non-geek, only marginally conversant with the nuts and bolts of computers. I understand the basics (backup, replace, restore what needs restoring, check and go). But I am recognizing that for someone like me, if I didn't have my Tom to do the tech work, I would be really in trouble. Even a straight-foward thing like the upcoming upgrade boggles my mind.

Which is why I appreciate LiveJournal (and some of the other blog sites I have used, esp Blogger which was my first independent foray into blogging) which lets me create, manage and update pretty much seamlessly.

So my opinion is that if you are basically blogging for a hobby, use LiveJournal or Blogger.  If you need a more full-featured product that exists on your domain or server, allows you to track items along multiple pathways (I think the right term for this is CMS -- Content Management System) and perhaps let multiple users work together, then WordPress is a good choice.

Oh -- and one other little note:  if what you write is important, DO back up on a regular basis, even for things hosted off-site like this LiveJournal blog...   you don't want to lose your hard work if the company's servers die!

Well, the computer is working well enough at the moment. Everything really important has been backed up... the rest can wait or go.

The sound still works okay for most things, but not through the jacks for mic and headphone.

And the reason it had stopped was that one of the latches for the battery broke, so the battery wasn't seating correctly. I think a spring worked itself loose...

So it will definitely go in for repairs, but as nothing is urgent at the moment, we will wait until it's a little more convenient.

(arrgh)

Okay, I had to leave the house to work at the local school some more, and when I came back, I had a BRILLIANT idea!

I took the battery out of the computer.

Sure enough, booted right up.

So the problem isn't the computer itself (thankfully, and I shall back up the family photos that are stored on it next)... it is the Toshiba Battery Pack, model PA3465U-1BRS

Off to backup those files and do research on a replacement...

I have had the Toshiba Satellite since August (see earlier reviews here and here).

Today, exactly 6 months plus one day from purchase, it refuses to turn on.

Oh, a computer that didn't boot would be frustrating enough. I'd have to hunt down the rescue disk and do all kinds of fiddly stuff.

But this won't even turn on. It's like sticking the key in the ignition and it doesn't even turn in the lock. The battery doesn't even engage. The ... [fill in the blank]

And yes -- it's plugged in and receiving power. The blue light that indicates power supply is on.

SO -- hoping mightily that they will be able to recover the images I loaded to it... I think I will be taking it back to the store I purchased it from (full repair-replacement warranty for three years). Today. Maybe even this morning.

How do you spell frustration?

I spell it T-O-S-H-I-B-A