Happy Birthday Browser

Last night Mozilla threw a huge birthday party for it’s special baby. The Firefox browser turned 5!

A nice perk of working for one of the open-techie-non-profits in San Francisco is invites to events like this. Only two of us from work were able to go, but boy did we have fun! It was a great party; a dance party in fact.

There were special drinks made up just for the occasion. They were called foxtails and had vodka, rum, Midori and white cranberry juice, and they were served on the rocks with a special plastic ice cube that flashed red and orange in the glass. I usually am not a fan of some of the ingredients, but those drinks were yummy!

The place was decorated with red and orange flashing lights. There were shrimp and veggie kabobs outside the venue and little round orange carpet circles that led you from the entrance gate, passed the kabob stand, into the large hall. Inside treats included crème brûlée in various flavors, even Frosted Flakes!, and Firefox temporary tattoos.

The music was mostly electronic beats, but played with familiar song lyrics on top of them. Interesting, and good enough to get most people out on the dance floor. At one point, I got to see Mr. Firefox himself (or one of the incarnations of the night) break dancing. He lost his foot!

There were four cakes, each sculpted like different Firefox logos, including the spherical fox wrapped around the globe one. Each cake was a different flavor. I missed out on the raspberry cream layered cake and had to wait patiently by as they divided out all of the double chocolate that I had no interest in eating. Then they cut into that giant sphere cake. Yellow layer cake with a not-too-sweet frosting. Delicious!

But one of my favorite parts of the whole night was getting my picture taken with Mr. Firefox himself!

[Unfortunately, this was during one of Mr. Firefox’s shorter incarnations of the evening, so I had to bend down a bit, but it’s still a cute picture!]

Both my coworker and I had a great time at Firefox’s birthday party. We talked, we ate yummy food, drank yummy drinks, danced and enjoyed the scene. Thanks Mozilla, for throwing such a nice party.

P.S. Yes that's the dress I got stuck in. I actually received quite a number of compliments on the dress at the party, which I thought was a little weird since it was a dance party.

Forget Xzibit, I’ve got Mr. Trizzle!

We all have things we’re good at and things we’re not so good at.  Sometimes I pick on Mr. Trizzle for the things he’s not so good at, like laundry.  (Mommy thinks it’s bad that Daddy washes all the laundry  on cold; well, Mr. Trizzle washes everything on warm!  If I had to choose, I go with Daddy.)   But, if there’s one thing Mr. Trizzle is super good at, it’s computers.

He’s totally pimped our house out.  Check this: I can sit in the back room, and with my laptop not plugged into anything (except the wall if I want) I can play music on the stereo in the living room, print on the printer in the living room or access any of the hundreds of GB of files on our home server.  It’s so cool!

Can you do that in your house? Huh, huh?  Didn’t think so.

He set it up during the brief period he had a Mac Book, so he actually used three different operating systems to do it.  Mac OS, Windows and Ubuntu.  He handled all the techie stuff, I was in charge of making it look pretty – but I had plenty of input from him on that.  (Our router looks like a flying spaceship sliding up the wall; it’s neat!  And all the different components, modem, server, print server, external drive, are mixed in with the books so you don’t notice them, except for the blinking lights.)

He did it something like this – I’m not a techie, so this my approximation of what he tried to explain to me – :  There’s a special computer that sits on top of a speaker.  It runs Ubuntu and doesn’t have a “C” key.  Mr. Trizzle put some type of program on the computer that allows you to run the machine virtually. 

Then he put other programs on the other machines that tap into this virtual program through the wireless network and let you move the mouse and type on the Ubuntu machine, no matter where you are.  [The Mac program was called Chicken of the VLC, which I thought was hilarious.  The icon was a chicken in a tuna can.  Mr. Trizzle is not familiar with Chicken of the Sea, so he didn’t get it.]  These virtual thingies open in windows on our laptops, just like any other window, except that window shows the entire Ubuntu desktop.

I think those pieces were the easy part and that the hard part was getting the Ubuntu machine to access the Windows-based home server, but I could be wrong about that.  The Ubuntu machine is hardwired to the stereo, so as long as the stereo is on, and on “Monitor,” the system will play.  We can listen to Pandora on the web, or play music from our music files, or anything else we want.

There’s still some work to do with the server to get it to play nicer with the external hard drive, but the whole system’s still pretty cool.   Thank you, Mr. Trizzle for pimping our apartment.

 

P.S. In case you’re wondering, there are other things Mr. Trizzle is good at too, like parallel parking and pushing the status quo.

You Know You're Old When There's a Generation Below You

My birthday's not for another month yet, but I'm already starting to feel it.  Between the grey hair, varicose veins and inability to sleep through the night, you'd think I'm about to turn 58, not 28.  Anyway, I saw something today that made me really realize I'm no longer a spring chicken.  I'm not the current generation.  I'm past; I'm old news.  I'm not what the media companies want; I'm not who the advertisers are trying to get.  I'm so last decade.

Jerry Del Colliano writes articles about music, mostly about how terrestrial radio is vampired thanks to the morons who consolidated it.  Today, he had a post that broke down the generations tech/media-wise:

Baby boomers (that's my mommy and daddy)
• Radio (always on)
• Raised on TV (sit down to watch particular programs as scheduled)
• Newspapers (at the breakfast table)
• Cell phones to make calls (if they can figure out how to use them)
• iPod as a fascination (haven't gotten there)
• Social networking just breaking through (Mommy on Twitter)

Gen X (me)
• Radio (but it sucks -- their words) (very much so! But I still use it in the car and often at home)
• TV and MTV (MTV when it played music, will stare at TV if it's on.)
• Get their news online not in print (yup, only read a newspaper if I happen to come across one somewhere)
• iPods, Blackberries (well, I hate iPods and am against the mega-phones, but I do love my Zune.  My phone will have nothing more than #s on the keypad as long as I can help it)
• Social networking -- frequently for marketing purposes and business connection (ah, the beauty of Twitter (and blogging))

Gen Y (Munchkinhead)
• Radio only when there is nothing else (Munchkinhead does like her indie radio in Milw.)
• TV is better on a laptop or computer and even more desirable without commercials (I think she still watches TV on tv, but I don't know)       
• Forget newspapers (they make nice hats)
• iPods are standard equipment for this generation (never see her w/o her iPod)
• Mobile phones are built into their hands (pretty much, or into her pants)
• Text messaging is obsessive ($40 over-text limit bills, right Mommy?)
• Spying on each other over social networks is a right of passage (that girl lives on Facebook!)
• They want to be involved in their media
• Want to stop, start, time delay or delete on demand (yeah, I really have no idea here - Munchkinhead?)

I looked at this break-down and realized, I'm out.  What shook me up even more, my little Munchkinhead and I aren't in the same generation.  Technology has developed so fast, it's sliced a generational gap right down the middle of us.  I was born in the early '80s; she was born in the late '80s.  Somehow, that's a world of difference.  I grew up on Snorks, Rainbow Brite and Fraggle Rock.  I don't know what she watched in the mornings because, by the time she got up to watch morning cartoons, I was into sleeping late.  On weekdays, I was at school before she was up.  Mine and Alfred's after-school shows were Square One and Saved by the Bell.  I don't know what Munchkinhead watched after school; I got home with Mommy since she picked me up from my after-school activities on the way home from work.

It's funny though, despite how differently we use technology, and how I have no clue about many of the staples of her generation, I never felt separated from her.  I never felt like I wasn't around.  We played together all the time, often forcefully dragging Alfred into it.  (Like the time I made her Sir Barnabus and told her to go attack the grizzly bears, and she ran right for poor Alfred, who was trying to fix the computer desk.)  I feel like we share a lot of the same memories, just not necessarily the ones that relate to pop culture and media. 

Our media connections are either from our parents' generation (White Rabbit, the Beatles, etc.) or things that continue producing through multiple generations (Metallica, Sesame Street, etc.)  I can think of a few exceptions, things that Alfred and I sort of forced to stay relevant (the Little Brown Tape, the Little Blue Tape, maybe even the Little Green Tape, though we didn't discover that 'til we were in high school).

Well, I guess I better go eat a bran muffin and take a nap.  That's what old people do, right?

Spring Break Day #8: Almost Like a Real Vacation (or Help, I'm Turning into Daddy!)

I wanted to go to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk for my last Saturday in the Yay. But, with a forecast of high of 58 and the boardwalk being on the ocean and stuff, that idea was vetoed. So, I told Mr. Trizzle he had to come up with something fun that he hadn't shown me yet. He did a great job! We went to the Tech Museum in San Jose and then to the Oakland Carnival. (Even Daddy would have had a tough time planning a better day.)

The Tech museum in San Jose was not at all what either of us expected. Based on the on-line information, we both expected a museum about tech. Here's an old computer, here's how technology has advanced, here's where we're headed - that sort of thing. Nope, it was basically a hands-on science museum, aka full of kids.

The line to get tickets was super long, and there was one person working the counter. The membership line was non-existent, but there were two people at that counter. Since the line was so long, I said to Mr. Trizzle, "can I just run into the gift shop really quick to look for something?"

"What?"

"A thimble for my mommy. She collects them, so every time we go somewhere, we get one for her."

"What's a thimble?"

"(suppressing giggle) A thimble is something you put on your finger when sewing so you don't prick yourself."

"Oh! The Monopoly piece."

"(failing to suppress giggle) Yes, like the Monopoly piece."

"Why would they have a thimble there?"

"Because people collect them. It's one of those random collectors items. Most museums have them."

Mr. Trizzle continued to assert that he thought it was ridiculous that I would look for a thimble in a tech museum and that he strongly believed I would not find one. I came back about two minutes later with this:

All he could say was "w-o-w." Hee hee. Point for goldenrail! Mommy, you'll get your thimble as soon as I mail it.

The museum itself was pretty cool. I would have had a lot of fun there with my sisters, especially in the giant Tinker Toys playroom. But Mr. Trizzle was some fun, too. He played a quiz game with me (and won) and he took a picture of me as a hockey goalie.

Museum admission also came with an Imax ticket. We saw a film narrated by Robert Redford about the saving the Colorado River. At one point in the film, they're touring these old Native American ruins and this lady says, "you have to admire the Anasazi for building their homes where there wasn't any water." And, true to what Daddy would do, I thought, "no you don't! That's stupid; that's why they all died when there was a drought and now it's just ruins!" The movie was a bit annoying because it's Berkeley-ness was a little over the top. I also found it kind of ironic in an amusing sort of way that this movie was being shown at the tech museum because it kept talking about how bad all these technological developments were for the river.

After finishing up the museum, Mr. Trizzle was given an opportunity to one of the things he likes best - jam sticks in The System's spokes. He was given this opportunity in the form of a parking ticket. The ticket was for an expired parking meter. But see, here's the thing: the meter wasn't expired, it was broken. They didn't ticket him for parking at a broken meter, or for being parked there too long (there was a two-hour time limit, but the ticket was given an hour and a half after we parked). So what did Mr. Trizzle do? He took my camera and took pictures of the area and the broken meter and he's going to send them with a letter in that little ticket envelope.

The freeway was gridlock at some point on the way back, so we got off and took a nice tour of Hayward and Oakland until we got to the Oakland Carnival. We had seen the carnival on the way out to San Jose, so Mr. Trizzle said we could go if the lights were on when we came back. They were!

It was the most ghetto carnival I've ever seen. The scariest people were the ones working there. (Who, incidentally, were also the only white people there.) They had messy hair, scrunched up faces and, for the women, too much bad make-up. The scariest was the guy with three teeth and a beer in his hand, he was running this one ride that flips upside-down.

We had a lot of fun. We both went on the Tilt-A-Whirl, the pendulum-thingy that they called 1001Nachts (there was this girl that sat next to us and kicked two little kids off - who had, in all fairness, just ridden - so that her boyfriend could get on the ride. He had some nice shiny grills in his mouth; I was a little jealous.), and that ride that flipped upside-down; it's called the Energy Storm. That ride was terrifying! I was slipping all over the seat, my head flew out sideways and I couldn't bring it back in. And to make it worse, being upside down that long made my head start to itch. Can't scratch it - still have cornrows! Mr. Trizzle also went on the Gravitron to use up the last four tickets, while I got a snow cone.

For dinner, we headed to one of Mr. Trizzle's fav Chinese places (one we hadn't been to yet), the Pink Place. I felt so awful that I could hardly eat anything. I had half a little dish of vegetable soup. Mr. Trizzle managed to eat the rest of it, but he wasn't feeling great either. I was so sad. When I was a little kid, we used to go on all the rides all day long, and spin around in the living room for fun. Now, like Daddy, everything makes me sick. It sucks! We paid for our very small dinner and headed back to the hotel. I was in bed by 8:30 on my last Saturday night in the Yay. :( At least the day had been a lot of fun.

Meet Me Where the Tweets are Plenty

Mr. Trizzle asked me the other day why I like Twitter so much.  "It seems," he said, "so voyeristic."  Too personal, too open.  After all, unlike Facebook's status message updates - which is sort of what Twitter is in a way - anybody can see it, not just people you actually know in real life.  It's also a bit like randomly im'ing strangers, a behavior that fell out of practice for non-weirdos almost a decade ago.  But here's why I like Twitter so much:

You get the whole person.

Since leaving the little 30 minute radius in which I was born, grew up and went to school all the way through college, my life has become compartmentalized.  It was very strange to me when I realized in the Peace Corps I had, for the first time in my life, friends who would probably never meet my parents.  It was a shocking and uncomfortable revelation.  (My mommy's so much fun, I want everyone to know her!)  Now that I'm in law school, still outside that radius, studying something most peolpe don't give a rat's vampire about, things are even more segregated.  I realized last week sometime that I have exactly one person in my life with whom I can talk about everything and anything I'm doing or find interesting.  One.  That's almost absurd.

This results in segregated interactions with the people in my life.  My blogs are a perfect example.  This is my personal blog.  It's for funny stories and random things I want to share.  I don't post about IP (intellectual property) stuff because most of my readers here won't care and won't have enough background knowledge to understand.  In the same respect, Ip's What's Up and the African IP blog to which I contribute only contain posts about their subject matter.  They're not the proper places for random musings.  Few people read all three blogs, or even this and Ip's.  I know my blog readers, my friends and to some extent even some of my family members only in the contexts in which we interact.  It becomes like when you were in grade school and ran into one of your teachers at the store or something and were shocked to discover they existed outside of school.

Twitter is different.  Not only can I leave one little window open on my screen, smaller than aim (I use twhirl), I can get information and updates on everything in one place, and have conversations about it: IP, sewing, shoes, you name it, whatever I choose, whomever I choose to follow.  But the best part is, I get more.  The guy in South Africa who discusses computer and business stuff also shares his pictures of the beautiful African landscape and rejoices over Pepsi.  The IP lawyer in Illinois tweets about new updates and adds links to very interesting articles, but he also tweets about the time he's spending with his son.  The writer in New York tweets about new projects and journals and social issues and the tea cakes his mom sends him.  Lawrence Lessig, renowned scholar/activist who founded Creative Commons (and is now leaving Stanford for Harvard) tweets about the same sort of issues he passionately discusses in his blog, but he also has conversations with his family members and says he's getting on an airplane.  Suddenly, this icon of our times is immensly human.  And Shaq, Shaq is just a regular ol' crazy guy.

Personal?  Yes.  Voyeristic?  Perhaps.  Open?  Very.  But any of it "too"?  No.  Twitter is each of these and none of these.  It's whatever you let it be.   There's one guy in LA that likes to constantly tweet the exact address of wherever he is.  That's more info than I care to know, and far more than I would ever dare give.  But it's what he wants to do with it.  (I may stop following him soon, haven't decided; or send Mary Ruth to sneak up on him, hee hee.)  There's a mom somewhere who likes to sew.  I enjoy reading about how she's trying to get some chore done so she can get in the sewing room.  Why?  Because I can relate.  Because of Twitters nature, it's almost never compartmentalized.  (Organizations' acconuts may be an exception.)

So why do I Twitter?  It brings my life together in one place, and it does it with whole people.

Part of Me's Missing

I used to tease Mr. Trizzle about attached he is to his computer.  The man hardly goes anywhere without his laptop.  He takes it to bed with him, to meals, to work where he already has a computer.  In fact, I have a photo of him sitting in a hotel room on one of our trips to Cali with his laptop on his lap that I titled "Man and his Best Friend."

But now that my laptop's broken, I'm bored and lonely.  No morning "good-nights" to my friends and family.  No late night chats with people on their lunch breaks.  No falling asleep to "The militia is going to Brighton and I do so want Papa to take us all there for the summer."

My whole routine is shot.  Usually, I down stairs after dinner and take care of my emails, see what's new in the bubbler-less world of So Cal, check out the newest rich white folk gossip, check to see if anyone else has updated (usually not), and then head over to Ip's What's Up to check the sidebar for all the latest IP news.  I spend the rest of the evening chatting, playing Freecell, and working on some sort of project - a blog past, a video, a collage, maybe some online Christmas shopping.

Anybody who's spent any time with me know I'm always creating something.  If I had a sewing machine, I'd probably miss my laptop less.  I have books, and I like reading, but reading someone else's stuff without being able to write my own just isn't as fun.  I have my journal, and that's good.  I can handwrite some of the projects I would have done on the computer - but, I can't use my journal to do the research necessary for a good Ip's post.

I just spotted an army man, a small Nigerian flag and a blue plastic circle.  That could keep me entertained for awhile.  Bye!

I Forgot My Toothbrush

It struck me as incredibly ironic this morning, that I had just written this post about not leaving behind that one important item, and then this happened:

I spent a good portion of my Monday working on the personal statement for a Fellowship that I really, really want.  It's a long shot anyway, but I want to apply.  (It's not that I don't think I have a lot to offer, it's that I think there are a lot of people with a lot to offer who will apply.)  I planned to email the statement to a friend as soon as I got home, thus simultaneously backing it up in the cloud.  Fate had another plan.

When I opened my computer at home, the screen stayed black.  I'd been having problems with my computer screen (See Grey Is Better Than Blue post), so this wasn't entirely unexpected.  But two things upset me right away: 1) that application statement, and 2) loss of the ability to communicate with people back home.  I got over number two pretty quickly when my mom responded to my texts and Mr. Trizzle answered my phone call.  But that first one was a biggie.

Trying to Fix It

(Somehow, I have a feeling only Mr. Trizzle and MaryRuth are going to understand most of this section)

Mr. Embassy-man let me try his external monitor, but I could only get into my Linux system.  My machine's on a dual boot and when it starts up I get a black and white DOS-looking (but it's not DOS) screen with a list of choices for loading an operating system.  That screen wasn't visible.  Linux is the default.  Since I couldn't see the screen, I couldn't choose, and Linux booted.

At first, I was happy.  Linux can read my Windows drive (but not vice versa) so I thought I could just get my file, put it on my flash drive and be on my merry little way.  Not so fast. 

When my screen first showed up black, I did the general panic thing and tried restarting the computer, by holding down the power button until it turned off.  This meant Windows didn't shut down properly.  And that meant Linux couldn't access my Windows drive because it was 'in use.'  No file.  Dang it.

I tried guessing about how many times I needed to arrow down on that black and white screen to choose the Windows operating system.  It seemed to load once, but the monitor stayed black.

Linux told me I had two options.  If that other drive (my NTFS partition) was Windows, I should boot into windows and close it properly.  Yeah, ok, great, except I can't get into Windows.  Or two, if I didn't have windows, I could manually force Linux to read the drive (Linux calls it 'mount').  I had no idea how to do that.  'This is why a computer dilettante like myself should not be running Linux,' I thought.

So I headed home (after some yummy cheese and olives!) to wallow in my sorrow (and stupidity).

Mr. Trizzle is a bit of a computer geek trapped inside a lawyer's body.  I called him this morning to explain what had happened, and we spent over an hour discussing options.  He was very patient with me and tried to help, despite his obvious irritation at my not backing up this one important document before I left work.  (But I was going to back it up when I got home!  I was going to pack my toothbrush later...)

A String of Miracles

Today at work, I hooked up the desktop's monitor to my laptop and started trying things.  Eventually, I got into Windows and got it to show up on the monitor.  (A lot of trial and error, using the desktop system's windows as a guide, guessing about how many times to arrow down on that black and white screen and then hitting the right key combination to tell the laptop to use the external monitor.)

Miracle #1: There was power when I got to work.  Ok, not quite a miracle, but not a given either, and definitely a good thing.

Miracle #2: I got into Windows without being able to see anything.

Miracle #3: Windows showed up on the external monitor.

Miracle #4: The internet came on just long enough for my files to back-up in the cloud!

Why I Didn't Go Crazy

You may have noticed I was only concerned about one file.  How?  Why?  I need to thank Mr. Trizzle for putting me on to two amazing programs that literally saved my sanity.  If it weren't for these programs, I would have thought I lost everything.  SyncToy and DropBox.  I mentioned both in my post about my work desktop. 

All my work documents are backed-up both on my flash drive and in the cloud.  SyncToy makes it incredibly easy to have matching files in many places.  I just set up my folder pairs and run the program anytime I'm going to close my computer.  My DropBox folder is one of the folders I sync.  Then DropBox automatically uploads my files to the cloud whenever there's an internet connection.  My semester paper, all my research notes, my numerous projects, even if I had lost my laptop completely, I'd still have all those.

I suggest everyone backup their data now (and everyday), and I recommend both these programs for doing that.  I believe SyncToy is a Microsoft application and thus Windows only.

I'm also very glad I had Linux on my machine (thanks again to Mr. Trizzle).  If Linux hadn't been on there, nothing would have shown up on the monitor at Mr. Embassy-Man's house and I wouldn't have kept trying to get into windows.  I would have thought the whole computer was kaput.  I do not, however, recommend putting Linux on your computer, especially not just so you can tell when only your screen is broken.

This Post

This post is my first trial at using my computer blindly.  You'll have to let me know how it works.  I can hook my laptop up to the monitor at work, but there's (usually) no internet.  At home, there is internet, but no extra monitor.  So I can type and work at work, but only upload or download at home.

I spent some time at work today trying to make my computer useable without a screen: taking notes on how many times to press what keys, adding sound effects for everything (my computer says "oof" a lot now), etc.  Hopefully, what happened was, I got home, opened my computer, logged into windows, got into my LiveWriter and posted this post without needing to see the screen.

I think it's time for me to go change some settings in my Thunderbird so I can do something similar with my email.  (Another thanks to Mr. Trizzle for putting me onto that program, too!)

Grey is Better than Blue (Screen of Death)

I hope my computer makes it until it's time to go home.  It's starting to resemble Russell's!

For those of you who didn't go to Vandy any of the past 7 years, this is Russell: (that white strap on his head is swim goggles)

By the end of his last year of law school, Russell's computer was on it's last leg.  The front part, where you rest your hands to type, was covered in graffiti'd duct tape.  The power cord was held together with electrical tape, and the screen... well, the screen had to be propped up with a nice fat law book.  A few not-so-nice friends liked to walk past and grab the book occasionally.  Bam, the screen would slam to the table, the laptop completely open face, like a fancy sandwich.  Well, sometimes.  Usually, Russell caught it in time.  But his computer certainly was the source of great derision on Main Street (the main hallway where many of us sit to study and mingle.)

My computer's not quite as bad as Russell's, yet, but I'm starting to worry.  My power cord that had electrical tape to cover the broken casing got fried a month ago or so.  The other one's still holding up fine. 

My screen, however, is driving me crazy.  It keeps going grey so that it looks like it has some sort of cloudy film over it.  For awhile I could jiggle the computer and get the screen back to normal.  Then, I was able to push on the plastic below the screen and get it to snap the color back in place.  But now, now it only gives me the right color if I squeeze the plastic at the top of the screen tight.  When I let go, it goes back to grey.  At least I know what to do when I need to check the colors of something.

And then there's my speakers.  I have to jiggle the wires, pull them, push them, turn them.  I tried finding a good spot and taping the wires in that position, but I don't have tape and those "I Support VFW" stickers aren't very sticky.  I think the little speakers may go in the trash instead of home with me.  They've lasted a long time, still have beans inside of them from Zambia.  It's true!  I can hear the beans when I shake the speakers.

Oh well, even if my computer does end up like Russell's, at least I have better taste in formal footwear!

(Russell's on the right, Mr. Trizzle's on the left.)

It's Not Easy Being the Computer Guru

Funny thing is, I'm really not one.  But around here, whew, I don't know what they're going to do when I leave!

Things I've been asked, just in the past week:

• What do I do to change the name of a file?
• Why does the printer say no paper when there's paper? (the tray wasn't in properly)
• How do I put numbers in this table? (in a word document)
• How do I delete a column in this table?
• How do I copy files to my flash drive?
• I dragged my files from this window to my desktop; why aren't they in this window anymore?

At least no one's asked me how to turn on the computer.  That was me, asking them.  There's all these different boxes and stuff to protect against power surges and outages.  I couldn't tell if it mattered in what order they were turned on or not.

My Desktop

Another techie post, sorry folks, no crazy-vampire Nigerian stories today.  Why?  Because I'm excited about my desktop and want to share my excitement!  :-P

There's some little shortcut goodies and fun gadgets buried in here, fyi. ;)

You know how Windows allows you to have up to 5 different user accounts on one computer?  Well, for me, that's just perfect.  I have my own, with the cute little yellow rubber duckie.  Then, I have an account for each of my four imaginary alligators, Jack, Sally, Lee and Bob.

I don't like having lots of icons on my desktop, or lots of little buttons in my system tray, but I do like having the things I need to use most easily accessible.  I noticed that the things I want accessible at work and the things I want accessible at home are (usually) different.  Since I don't want all the icons for both home and work all over my desktop, I decided to convert one of my alligators' accounts to a "work system." 

Introducing the Lee (Remi) account

Remi is my Yoruba name, so I thought it would be a good one to use for work.  I couldn't just take away Lee's account though; that wouldn't be very nice, so we're sharing.  I think I chose to share with Lee because I like the little rubber froggie second best, after the duckie.  I added a password, changed the account type to administrator and went to work designing my work account.  (The other accounts are not password protected and can thus be used by guests, if they ask the alligators nicely to share.)

You can see here what my desktop looks like with everything closed. 

System Tray

In the system tray, there's Media Monkey for my music, AVG, my kick-vampire free anti-virus, and my drop box is usually up there too, backing up all my hard work to the cloud (and Mr. Trizzle's computer, hee hee).

Icons

Then I have shortcuts on the desktop for only the things I use the most: Word, OneNote, SyncToy (one of the greatest inventions ever!), my Work Files folder, Chrome and one other folder of IP documents I might need often.  As you can see, unlike some people, I have no qualms about mixing proprietary software with open source, or using both Microsoft and Google applications.  I use what works best for me, and that's generally Microsoft on the computer and Google in the cloud.

Background

I had chosen the blue mountain background because it was simple and not distracting, exactly what I need for work.  But one day I got bored with it and changed it.  Now, I have the same problem as munchkinhead, "I need to find a new background that I wont stare at for hours."  Oh well, at least I can't see it when I'm actually working... I'm just really tempted to hit Windows Logo Key+D a lot.

This is what my screen looks like when I'm working - everything right there in front of me, exactly where I need it:

  Word

If you look carefully, you'll notice that my Word program is split into 3 frames.  Two of them are attached.  In the red circle, I have easy access to my styles.  This allows me to quickly format my text without  having to switch back to the Home Tab.  The green circle is my main document, and in the blue circle, my comments.  I use comments (Ctrl+Alt+M) to easily mark areas of my document that I want to edit later.  Having the reviewing pane open on the bottom instead of having the comments in balloons on the document allows me to easily find the areas I want to edit without wasting a lot of screen space.

One Note

I had tried using One Note last semester for taking notes in class  and decided it sucks for that purpose - for me.  I'm better off with a pen and a notebook.  But I've discovered One Note is amazing for compiling research.  The program makes organization easy, and more important, makes it extremely simple to search for things.  In this screen shot, I was working on a paper for work.  Behind my Word document of the paper is my One Note research info.  I can flip through the notebook to find the information I need, and then continue to look at it while typing in my Word doc.

I also have a Side Note Window open (Ctrl+Shift+M).  It's like a sticky tab on my screen, and it's set to always stay on top.  It has my outline for my paper so that I can organize my paper well without cluttering up my Word Doc, and I can always see where I'm headed next in the paper.

 

 

My Music

Sometimes, I like to listen to music while working.  And being me, I want to mark my music.  Media Monkey has this nifty feature called Mini Player.  It puts a little translucent playlist on the screen.  The playlist shows me the past five songs and the upcoming six or so.  It also allows me to see all the information about the songs and gives me access to the volume, properties, and play controls.  Like the Side Note, it stays on top of the other windows.  Since it's translucent (like Wendy!), I can still see any important information that might be on the Word doc behind the media player.  I can adjust the size of the playlist box to whatever suits my fancy, too.

Internet

Usually I don't keep my taskbar on top, but in the picture it's on top because I hit the Windows Logo Key to take the screen shot. (Windows Logo Key+S).  However, I do have my windows arranged so that they only partly cover the task bar.  That's so I can easily see if I have new messages in my email - when there's internet.  New mail is just a click or Alt+Tab away!  I know it's more productive to not check the email every time a new message comes, but I don't get that many, and they usually perk me up a bit.  I get excited.  In fact, I get so excited, I actually tired opening the window in the picture to check that one message!  And I know there's no internet on right now!

So that's my work desktop.  It's spiffy!

"We're Sorry, This Video is No Longer Available"

It's often seen, and it may be on it's way out!

I know this seems like the type of topic that should be on the IP blog, but I thought my readers here might be interested in it.

YouTube and MySpace are embarking on a new experiment that will approach pirated videos differently.  Instead of sending a DMCA Take-Down Notice that results in removal of the video, the rights holders involved in the experiment will allow the companies to put advertisements over the video, and the revenue from the ads will go to the proper rights owners.  Users win - still get to see videos.  Rights owners win - still get compensated for their work.

Detailed info available from Reuters.

Change is in the Air, and on the Blog

Regular visitors to this pretty little playground may have noticed a few changes recently.  I would like to take a moment to highlight a few of these and then explain what prompted the changes.

What's in a Name

There are no more archives, no more labels, no more friends and such and no more followers.  (I don't associate with followers anyway.)  Everything has been renamed.  Why?  Because it's fun, and I'm not boring.  You can call me lots of things, but boring is definitely not one of them!  (Someone else has that job.)  Now all titles fit with the theme.  What theme?  The theme of the blog; the theme of my life: fun knickers and childhood toys.

Customer Service

There are now even more ways for you to make sure you don't miss any of the fun.   My sidebar offers three great options.  First, at the bottom of the sidebar, if you have a blogger blog or profile, you can sign up to be a Really Cool Person.  There's only one so far, but Jess is so super cool, that she's holding down the fort quite well.

Not cool enough for a blogger profile but still fairly tech savey?  You can Be One of My Playmates.  Sign up for RSS feeds of the Posts and Comments to have fun sent right to your reader of choice.

No blogger profile and not up on the whole reader thing?  No problem!  Mr. McFeely can help you out.  Just type your email address in the little box at Speedy Delivery and new posts will be speedily delivered to your inbox.  Readers who already receive posts by email may prefer to use this service instead as they will then have control instead of me,  mwahhhh haaa haaa.

The Impetus for Change

I am so cool, that one blog isn't enough to contain all my awesome-ness.  I'm just kidding.  But yes folks, for those of you who don't check out my profile for fun, I have another blog.  It's not just me though.  It's a joint effort with Mr. Trizzle.

Unlike this blog, which is a personal blog, and a very girly "this is my life, I'm so special" one at that, the other blog is a topical blog.  It is about intellectual property, IP for short, and is called Ip's What's Up.  Most of you, readers who are amused by bunny-written guest posts and five year-old perspectives of the world, will probably not care a smidgin about Ip, but you're welcome to check it out anyway.

In the month it's been in existence, we've already gotten over 200 visitors from at least 24 countries.  The readership stats on that blog are blowing this one out of the water!  Thanks in no small part to a British IP blog that gave us a shout out and a Congress-watching website with linkbacks.

It was in making adjustments to create a more reader-friendly atmosphere on Ip that I discovered the possibilities for personalizing the features and learned how to add external features (like Speedy Delivery).  So, being, as I said above, not boring, I had some fun playing with my little toy.  I hope you like the changes and continue enjoying your visits to Garter Skirts and Legos!

How can you have any music if you don't have your tags?

Anyone who's ever lived within a few thousand feet of me knows how important music is to me. There must be others out there like me. That being said, why can't I find one music program, that can interface with a mobile music/media device, with all the right features?

Let me explain what I need, and why I need it; this all stems from how I listen to music. (This post is rather long, but it's one of the few areas of computer related stuff that I actually know a bit about and care a lot about. I need to vent about it, and I'm also hoping maybe this will lead to suggestions from other people. I have added headings and subheadings hopefully for the ease of the reader. Skim away.)

The Importance of Music

Music is very powerful; it is raw emotion. As you may know from my last post, emotions are what drive my life and let me know I am alive. Sometimes I may want to listen to a certain song or album. In these instances, any media player or tangible music medium (cd/cassette/record) will work fine. But usually, I know how I feel, or how I want to feel, and I want to listen to music that matches that. Music is a force unto itself. If I am very upset, and can put on the perfect angry song, that force can pull that anger out, express it, release it. If it's a gorgeous day but I need to stay inside and work, and I play the right happy, uplifting songs, the whole day is bright and good, whether I'm inside or out.

Before all this digital stuff, when listening to music meant playing my cds or records, I could still choose my music by emotions. Usually when I got a new cd, I played it over and over and over until I knew nearly every single word. And as I played it, (if I wasn't driving) I looked through the booklet. That had the nice side effect of causing me to associate the mood of the music with the album art. That's why all the booklets were kept in my cd binders with the cds. I could flip through the pages, see the image that gave the right emotional response and put in the cd.

My Essential Features

I need to have album art. So often this doesn't automatically come up. I want to have an easy way to attach the proper album art, and as a last resort, be able to find it online and just copy and paste it to my files.

Mood settings. This is a rather no-brainer after the explanation above. Even better is to have two or more settings applicable to this area, such as Mood and Occasion.

Album artist different than artist. This is pretty standard now, but back when I first got my i-pod, it drove me crazy that I had to put half my stuff under Various, or mess around with the albums or artists to get things to line up right.

A decent rating system. Yes, including the option to mark something I hate. Don't give me that, if you don't like it don't have it bologna. Music is meant to be shared, someone else may want to hear that song.

Tags. Please, attach all the information I spend so much time inputting to the actual file. I hate moving files, switching players or restoring lost files and finding I've lost all that important info!

The Players I've Tried

Basic Players

Simple media players like WinAmp, Foobar and VLC, that require dragging or opening specific songs from your file structure just don't cut it. In order to effectively use one of these, you have to know exactly what song or album you want to listen to at any given time.

Foobar and VLC do have benefits that make them must haves for certain purposes, but they do not work for me as general media players. Foobar allows you to convert files from, say flac, to a good bit rate mp3. It also allows you to listen to different bit rates of the same song in order to find out where you can hear the difference, instead of relying on the so-called-experts' opinions. VLC can play video formats that no other player I have found can. Youtube videos saved via keepvid.com can be played back on VLC, allowing you access to them even without the Internet.

Players that Sync with Devices

Obviously, the grand-daddy of them all is i-tunes. Hate it. Apple's the devil. Maybe it's how many times I've had my i-pod repaired (gave up after it died a 4th time). Maybe it's how often I've lost all my music. But there are other issues with i-tunes as well. People tell me the newest version is better, but when I stopped using it, it did not have a lot of what I needed. It did have the album art at that time, but they don't attach to your files as part of the tags. That means, when I backup my library on my hard drive (because I will need it), that info doesn't go with the song file. I liked the smart playlists, too. However, quite often I would spend hours updating info and playlists and things, i-tunes would freeze and when I re-opened it, all my hard work was gone. It also caused my computer to crash so many times that I finally just had to delete it. The drm mp4s from the i-tunes store, also a major sucking point.

Windows Media Player is another standard. This one isn't so bad, except again it doesn't put the info into the file tags. Move it and lose it. I was kind of dumb and ripped a lot of my music using this program, with the default settings. That means I have a whole lot of .wma files. Not the best option. [Now I only use EAC for ripping. It allows me to rip into flac, which I can then change via Foobar into whatever bit rate file type I want.] The interface isn't bad most of the time, but occasionally it drives me nuts; doesn't give me enough options. With my amount of music, only having 5 stars (as in i-tunes) can feel a little stifling. Like the i-tunes stores, the stores available through Windows Media Player cater to that player's format and tend to be in wma. At least they're drm free.

I just downloaded the new Zune player yesterday. I've heard great things about the software. I am not impressed. It only has 3 ratings options. What am I supposed to do with that! I don't want 5,000 songs to come up when I select a rating that to me should mean "things I really like" or "songs I enjoy but aren't my favorites". The options for setting things in properties don't look too promising either. So far, I don't really jive with the interface, but as I said, I downloaded it yesterday. Maybe as I use it more, I will like it more. The problem is, I just got a Zune. (Carrying my laptop around as a media player was really not working so well. Often afraid that it would fly off the front seat of the car, or having to carry my backpack on a walk just to have music.)

Other Players

By far, the best software I have found is Media Monkey. It has album art, moods, occasions and spaces to add extra tags. I love that because then a song that works for more than one mood can be tagged for both! It interfaces with amazon.com for updating album information, including album art. That doesn't always work right, but it is still extremely helpful. The best part is that most of the information you enter into the properties window is actually attached to the file tag. It even attaches album art! Media Monkey also plays pretty much any file type, including flac and mp4. The interface can be extremely confusing, but that just takes some getting used to. It does give a lot more options than any other interface I have used. I especially like that I can change the column headings in the track browser (those threes columns like i-tunes has on top.) Oh, and it lets me do half-stars, plus it has a little bomb to mark tracks I hate (usually skits.)

Media Monkey also has some good side purposes, much like Foobar and VLC have their own things. Media Monkey is ideal for sorting music at the file structure level, i.e. straightening your vampire out. If your file names are in good shape, you can tag all your music from there. If your tags are good, but your file names aren't, you can do the opposite. I like to fix my tags via the internet/amazon sinc and then use another feature that allows you to fix your folder structure right from within the program. That is awesome. Media Monkey can take a lot of time to scan your drives for music, even if you've only added a few new songs, but by far the worst thing about it: it doesn't interface with any devices (that I know of.)

Current Plan of Action

So now I have a big mess of music files and folders, in darn near every format from wav to wma to mp3 and mp4 to flac, scattered across 3 of my 4 drives (my computer's a dual boot with a middle drive, and I have my external.) I have started flacing all my new music via EAC. The original plan was to flac everything, put the flacs on the external and convert them to a 200-level mp3 on the computer itself. That might still be the plan. However, it can be a major pain because cds from certain periods of my life, i.e. hut in Africa or car in college, aren't in the best shape and can take over 8 hours to flac.

Flacing aside, I at least still need to get my stuff cleaned up. Seeing as how I have a Zune, I'll need to sync it to either Windows Media Player or the Zune program. Guess that will depend on how many of the player's features transfer over to the device. (5 stars or 3 hearts, etc.) But I'm going to continue using Media Monkey to organize the music and label it. At least then my changes will be on the file tags and should transfer to the other players. I may need to make separate playlists for each mood that I want, enabling me to effectively pull up songs by mood on my Zune. Luckily, Media Monkey allows me to save playlists in a .m3u format readable by the Zune player. And I'm only buying digital music from sites like amazon.com, drm free baby! It seems like a cumbersome and probably problematic approach, but at this point, it seems the best I can do. What I really need is a media device that can function with a Media Monkey or a program with its features. That would be a good start. What do other music aficionados do?

(Original Post)

Bed

Frustrated

Traffic, ticking, breathing, peaceful morning