ShinyPlasticBag

So. It's here. It's actually been here for two days now.

The world has sped up considerably...and I love it. Her name is Pixel, and she is one sweet machine. I feel like my eyes have finally been opened wide once again, after having them slowly close on me over the last two years. Trinity was never exactly state-of-the-art, and, to be honest (no offence, Trinity!), I never really fell in love with her like I did with Limechan. But already, I feel very close to this machine. I know, I know, I'm a geek. But I related very personally with my computers, because I put so much of my own personality into them. Pixel is quickly becoming my all time favorite, just because laptops are so...intimate. Truly personal computers. I feel like I can dump my whole brain onto the hard drive, and not worrying about it, because I don't have to wonder if anyone else will be using it. She hasn't left my side.

I also like the way I've set this particular computer up. It's much more relaxed than usual. Since about 1998 I have been extremely anal with my file system, especially when it comes to retainable files — stuff I plan to burn to CD, like videos and music. I never kept stuff I liked on the hard drive once it was on CD. However, keeping such a strict arrangement has gotten tiresome, and it's really been a chore for the last year or so. My CD burning rate dropped from a high of 2 or 3 a month down to 2 or 3 every six months. I hope Pixel changes that — although I have yet to burn a CD, I'm collecting files like mad.

Besides lightening up on my organizational patterns, I've decided that it's time to break out of the past and try new things. Some of my most commonly used programs are absolutely ancient: Paint Shop Pro 5, from 1998, ACDSee 2.3, also from 1998, and CuteFTP 4.0, which isn't that ancient but is still old. At any rate, I've installed the newest versions of them, and I've also installed Photoshop 7 to see if I can learn to like it, just because it's so much more powerful than Paint Shop Pro. The verdict, thus far, is that Paint Shop Pro 7 has one of the worst interfaces I've ever seen (it's a jumble of uncommon, custom controls), but has some nice features, and that ACDSee Classic is virtually indistinguishable from ACDSee 2.3, also it has nicer icons and a great rotate picture function. Photoshop 7 I am still on the fence about. Oh yeah, and CuteFTP XP is great. Which reminds me, Windows XP is great. I love it! I can understand why some people would hate the “my first computer” Playskool interface, but I am quite fond of it — hurray for big, bold, and colorful! Besides, you can use the classic Windows stylings if you want to. Interface aside, I don't think I could ever go back without missing a plethora of features — from the categorized file listings to the handy-dandy-actually-useful sidebar in folders to the true color icons in the system tray, and, let's not forget, ClearType font smoothing, it's all great. My praise goes straight out to the Microsoft folks.

Anyway, in real life, nothing exciting has happened. At all. I've been playing with Pixel like mad and that, sadly, is about it. Every waking instant, it seems, I am glued to the keyboard, which I am starting to get used to and rather like, despite the odd placement of the `~ key next to the spacebar and the Start and Context buttons in the very top right. I absolutely love the extra buttons, though — CD/DVD player controls (play, pause, etc.). Now, if I could only find a ripper (do they still call them rippers? Whatever it is, a program to copy CD tracks to WAVE files) that recognizes my drive. Sigh.

Hmm. It's late. Happy Halloween, y'all, and remember: keep your fingers on the keys.

• Written on 31 October 2002 & posted at 11:40 AM.
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Well that was quite the hiatus. Sorry — been really really busy with school and work and stuff. I'm really wishing I had at least one day where I didn't have to go to school or work. But alas...

School...boring...uber...sigh. I wish I was at home...programming. Yeah, I'm sad, but I'm in the middle of Shiny Plastic Index. Version three. I've restarted that program so many friggin' times. I've decided, once again, that I want an Explorer-style experience. And I've decided to store each index in a separate file. That'll mean speed boosts. I've got some special classes and types that are speeding things up.

I have decided how to do the folders list yet — it would take a bit too long to load all of the folders in advance. I think I will do it on-demand, which will be slowish, but faster overall. Anyway, I am an uber geek, and the guys in the CS help desk have a Super Dave Osborne bouncy-head thing. How sad.

Super Dave Rocked.

• Written on 17 October 2002 & posted at 08:00 PM.
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Ack. I've been so very busy. I'm sorry little blog. Sniff.

Yeah. The first round of midterms is almost over — one to go on Friday, but four are done. Woot woot! Unfortunately, it's the end of the long weekend, and I don't feel like I got anything fun accomplished. But what can you do?

Had chicken today (I hate turkey!) and it was good. Mom carpet-cleaned the living room and rearranged the furniture, strategically placing a chair in the middle of the room. Something else for me to trip over — my mother is quite vindictive at times. =) But yeah. Boring weekend nonetheless.

In other news, Nick has gotten everyone to join his blog (The Life and Times of a Lowly Mac User — hosted here), so now it's a big pile of us. Sure, it has an ugly template, but at least it works completely (mine doesn't archive correctly — I mean, at all). Anyway, good for a dose of stupidness sometimes. =)

Anyhoots, I'm off. See all y'all.

• Written on 14 October 2002 & posted at 11:39 AM.
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Like the decor?

• Written on 11 October 2002 & posted at 02:35 PM.
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Woot! I think this is the coolest thing I have ever seen!

Is that sad?

9:15 AM
Have you ever had one of those dreams that were so vivid that you didn't know it was a dream? I had one last night, and I was a little sad when I woke up and realized that everyone I thought I had known in the dream were figments of my imagination. It was a very strange dream, and most of it took place in a mall I've never seen before. It's sort of hard to explain, so I guess I won't even bother. But it was weird...I think it might have been slightly inspired by me reading The Web: 2027 again, but I'm not sure.

Anyhoo, it's midterm season (does this mean we can shoot midterms?) and school is keeping me crazy busy. I can't wait until things settle down again. It seems like they came so fast! I guess I'll never get used to the feeling of not having learned anything when the first round of testing starts. Sigh.

Well, I have to go work now, but stay happy and stuff. See you all later.

• Written on 05 October 2002 & posted at 02:17 PM.
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