It’s raining here today. Again. My plans for yard work are dashed. Oh well. I turn my attention to my blogs. I don’t have anything worth stretching out into individual posts… so I’ll jot down some random tidbits I’ve been dwelling on.
Opera’s update to 9.64 is a failure. The updated browser slowed my browsing down to a crawl, and interrupts my music player (Napster) when it runs. The music stutters and slows when I browse. I tried the alpha Opera 10.00 version, but that has some bugs (like a thick black line across areas of the screen). So I dumped Opera 9.64 and 10 and went back to 9.63. What a difference!
I’m loving the art of screencasting right now. Screencasting is making a “video” of your desktop as you do things on it. It’s a great tool for tutorials. So far, the best screencasting program is CamStudio. I’ve also tried Jing and liked it, but you can’t save the screencast to your computer– you have to upload and access the file online at a website. Bummer. And I do like AviScreen, too, but it is a little slow and the GUI looks like Windows 98.
I’m avoiding HP computers as much as I can. I got two HP Pavilions two years ago– nice machines, I thought– but they are both starting to show signs of hardware failure. I must have computers, because we use them for the kids’ schooling, for image editing, and video-creating. The last thing I want to do is have to buy more computers! But if and when I do, I think I am through with the buggy HP. I have a Toshiba and an Acer that has never given me any problems. I’ve seen some Gateways on sale– are Gateways good? Anyone have experience with Gateway?
I was thinking about reformatting my computer, but after helping someone else do it recently, I’ve changed my mind. What a job.
The paid-posting business has really slowed down. I made good money last year, but this year looks like I may make only 1/3 of last year’s earnings. A lot of it has to do with PageRank. Of which I have none. The jerks.
I’m never buying a single-core processor computer again. Tooooo slow. I have an AMD Phenom X3 and I have to say I love it. When I go to the kids’ HP computer with it’s cheapo Intel Celeron and 256MB RAM, it’s like waiting for molasses to pour. Plus, the kids have all these computer games that they can’t play on the HP (and that they want to play on my X3!). Ugh.
I’m having a hard time figuring out how to take closeup photos with my Kodak z1012. That macro button eludes me. I have some nice flowers shots but they always turn out blurry. And I try to take weirdo shots (like a tick we found on our cat– he really needs Frontline or something) to post on the blogs for fun. But everything turns out blurry!! It doesn’t help that my camera manual is online only. :-p That’s even less incentive for me to read it.
Well, that’s enough randomness for today! Back to work…
April 8, 2009
chatty, computers