Category: Technobabble


Ain’t Technology Grand?

Filed Under: Skool, Technobabble by Julie — 3 Comments
May 10, 2011

Thesis writing calls for tech, methinks. For my first thesis, I got a new PC. And then because I took so long to write the damn thing, it was on its way out, so I bought my first Mac. For this thesis, an iPad was essential. Ben Franklin made me do it. Now, hear me out.

My thesis adviser has told me that I will probably be spending the summer reading the Franklin Papers. My college library has them, there are 37 published volumes, and they’re pretty sizable books, as you can imagine. I really didn’t want to spend the summer hauling them around, so I checked out my other options. They aren’t best-sellers (my apologies, Dr. Franklin), probably because they’re $100 a volume. Not being a best-seller in print pretty much guarantees you a book won’t be available on Kindle. They’re not. But where they are available is online: all 37 published volumes and then a few they haven’t gotten out in print yet. And while the web design is a little 1999, they’re online. That’s pretty fucking amazing if you think about it.

So, I had the option of reading them all on my laptop. My laptop is lovely, I use it on a daily basis, and so far it hasn’t let me down (I am frantically knocking wood right now). It is, however, a 15″ MacBook Pro, and it’s a few years old, so it’s from before they started using lighter materials. The TARDIS (yes, that’s what I call my laptop, shut up) is heavy. I re-learned this when I took it to the Performing Arts Library twice and the weight of it in my messenger bag nearly threw my neck out. In the summer, I do not like to be stuck in my house. I like to migrate, into the park, to friends’ houses, to hang with the kids, to western Massachusetts…I needed portable. And the iPad, it’s shiny.

So after calling around last weekend and finding that no Verizon stores had them (I wanted a 3G because I didn’t want to be limited to wifi spots – I wanted to be able to read the Franklin papers on the top of Mt. Greylock, if I so desired), and the Apple stores had limited quantities, I flew into Manhattan and got one. 64 GB black Verizon 3G model, the priciest of the lot at $829, not counting the data plan. If I was going to get an iPad, I decided to take my friend Aimee’s advice and get the biggest one I could afford. It was only $100 more than the 32 GB, and I didn’t want to get a 32GB home and realize that I really needed more space (I had gone that route with a 16GB iPod touch a few years ago and learned my lesson from it). My friend Lori was with me and fell so much in love with mine that after three hours and a Texas sized margarita, we went back and got her one. Such is the power of the iPad.

Anyway, that night I stayed up until 3 AM, loading Eleven (yes, I named the iPad after the Eleventh Doctor, shut up) up with all my music. And all my episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood from iTunes. And several movies. And 150 pictures. And there was still plenty of room. I went into the App Store and downloaded Pages so I can take thesis notes. I downloaded a ton of social networking stuff. I downloaded several games. I downloaded a drawing program. I downloaded a few news apps. I downloaded about ten free e-books. Still plenty of room. I continued the App Store extravaganza last night, when I found out that there was a game for cats (they chase a mouse around the screen. My cats are mighty e-mouse hunters and love this game now). There are apps for journaling. There are apps for blogging (I was going to test one out tonight, but I updated the iPad OS and it ate my blog post when I did that). There are apps for student productivity. There are apps for the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which came in handy for my class reading this week. There are freaking Doctor Who comic book apps. I still have like 19 GBs free on this thing.

Hi, my name is Julie, and I’m a Mac. And an app junkie. And oh my god, this thing is awesome. Big kids need nice toys, too, someone recently told me, and they were right. I love Eleven (the iPad. The character on Doctor Who is still growing on me.) But to keep it all thesis related, I set a background that is special to me:

ipad screen cap

That’s Benjamin Franklin’s grave. I’m keeping my eyes on the prize, baby. This time, I do right by Dr. Franklin. I do not write a half-assed thesis the week before it’s due like I did as an undergrad. I come up with something new and original that maybe, just maybe, could someday be part of a book. I owe it to him, and to me.

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One Month of Five Minutes

Filed Under: Shorty, Technobabble by Julie — 5 Comments
October 8, 2010

I shouldn’t be as proud of this as I am, but according to the calendar in the sidebar, I have officially been back to blogging for a month now. And according to the dropdown archives thing in the sidebar, this is the most I have blogged in a month since early 2008.

This concludes the self-congratulatory part of this post.

As the two of you reading this (damn, the number of people reading blogs has really taken a hit, hasn’t it?) can tell, I’m also trying out new themes for the blog. I wasn’t happy with what I had before because there were too many options I had no idea how to use, and I’m not quite happy with this one either, because there are too few. Theoretically, I could go back to the old one and actually learn how to use it, but that does not fit into the five minute plan, because I would then spend all day doing that instead of working on papers. And since I have not worked on said papers at all today, I should just give up for the day and do that. So I will.

This concludes the Julie’s personal musings about the nature of this blog part of the post. It also concludes the post.

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New toys

Filed Under: Technobabble by Julie — 7 Comments
March 19, 2010

This year, with my federal tax refund (since my state refund hasn’t come in because my governor is a tool and is holding onto everyone’s refund to fill a budget deficit, but that’s a rant for another day)…okay, let’s try this again.

This year, with my federal tax refund, I was very responsible and I paid off my credit cards entirely. I was mostly out of debt anyway because of the unexpected bonus of student loan deferments since I’m a part-time student now, but it felt excellent to get rid of that last bit. And then I thought “Hmm, I still have some cash left over. I want a new toy.” I hopped on CNet and looked at toys, because we all know Julie likes the tech, and that’s the best place to find out what tech is awesome. About this time, my TV set started getting lines across it when we turned it on, so part one was solved. I would get a new TV set. A new flat panel Hi-Def LCD TV, because they are the wave of the future (the part that I could afford with said refund, at least–no 3D TVs for us). And then, clicking around CNet, I started thinking “Well, my DVD player is from the dawn of time, perhaps I should upgrade that too.” And I decided to get a Blu-Ray player, because they too are the wave of the future.

Rick took me to Best Buy in Pittsfield one weekend, and then he left while I asked the people there five million questions. To be fair, he had not done the CNet research, and he thought it was going to be an in and out shopping trip. But goddammit, I was going to get the best TV and Blu-Ray I could afford. And I did, because at Best Buy, they are amazingly reasonable and sometimes cut you deals when they’ve just sold the last TV in the model you want and you tell them you have a price ceiling. This is a sucktastic picture of our new setup:

New toys

It was taken with my Droid on one of the awful rainy days last weekend when I was supposedly writing papers but was instead rejoicing in the new Hi-Def hookup DirecTV had just given me (which in itself is a story for another day). I had no idea that electronics could all plug into the internet these days. I purposely bought a Blu-Ray player that could do that because I wanted to be able to watch my Netflix instant queue on the TV, but did I know the DirecTV and even the TV would be internet-friendly as well? I did not. Color me happily surprised.

I could go into raptures over this TV since I’ve had some time to become acquainted with it. Channels that aren’t HD are a little annoying, but those that are? I felt like I was in the room with Ugly Betty last night, people. The picture is that good. Just for all that is holy don’t ever watch Kathy Lee Gifford or Trump’s hair in Hi-Def. There should be a warning included in the TV manuals about that. Kathy Lee was the first thing I saw in HD and I literally screamed “GAH!” (Pyotr, the DirecTV guy, thought this was very funny.)

The awesome thing about this is that I am using the opportunity to get rid of a bunch of small electronics. VCR, DVD player, component stereo set, all are getting donated to Goodwill as soon as I can get Rick to drive me over there. I haven’t used most of it in a while, so it was a good chance to declutter. New tech and housecleaning in one, totally win-win.

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Dear Blog

Filed Under: Assorted Ailments, Rick, Technobabble by Julie — 7 Comments
March 3, 2010

Somehow I missed your sixth birthday. Okay, not somehow, really, I knew it was coming up, I just neglected to commemorate it. I neglected to blog for two months. If there was a blog protective services, they would have taken you away long ago, because I am a bad blogger.

I can blame it on many things: Facebook. Twitter. Ravelry. Classes. Work. Laziness. But in the end I think I wasn’t sure I was a blogger anymore. The urge to blog just hasn’t been as overpowering as it was in the early days. In fact, I have had only one urge to blog in the past two months, and that was a post on why Ice Dancing and Curling are not sports and should not be in the Olympics. But instead I just bitched it out on Twitter.

Blog, on my second attempt at snowboarding I managed to bruise my tailbone. Instead of coming here with this comedic gold, I went to Twitter and Facebook and told thousands of people that I had bruised my ass. Which was awesome, but it could have been a great post. I let you down, blog.

Some of my two months of radio silence was trying to decide if I wanted to keep blogging. If I don’t blog as often, is it worth paying for the domain name and the hosting? On Monday, I decided to re-up for another two years, and my goal is to blog more so I am putting that $190 to good use. Little Blog, I resolve to not leave you in the corner gathering dust. So let’s get started with a stupid story!

Yesterday, my second visit to the doctor in two weeks (the first, where she diagnosed me with a bruised butt by putting on latex gloves and sticking her finger down my ass-crack to tell me that yes, my tailbone was “protruding more than usual,” apparently left an impression on her–can we blame her?–because she asked if my thumb injury was also due to snowboarding) resulted in a diagnosis of tenosynovitis in my thumb. (Side note: Why, hello, Google Health, and where have you been all my life?) She prescribed a gel NSAID for it. This gel shall now be known as $30 Copay Gel, because that’s what it cost with my copay, which makes me shudder to think of how much it costs without insurance.

Anyway, $30 Copay Gel is apparently often used for arthritis according to the Rite-Aid instructions that came with it. “Awesome,” I thought, “so I’m putting Ben-Gay on my snowboarding injury.” I read further. In order to accurately measure the dosage of the gel before you put it on, you need to squirt it onto a dosing card. The instructions clearly say “Put the card down on a flat surface so you can read it.” I relayed this info to Rick and said “It’s really for old people! Because their hands shake when they’re holding it so they can’t read it!” (Yes, I realize this is an extremely age-ist comment, but that’s okay, because Rick, an older person, laid the smackdown on me two seconds later.)

“No, it’s telling you to do that so you can read it. You know, as opposed to putting the card down upside-down so the writing is backwards and you can’t read it.”

Apparently $30 Copay Gel is for idiots like me in addition to old people.

Happy belated 6th birthday, Blog! Your writer is an age-ist moron!

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I upgraded

Filed Under: Skool, Technobabble by Julie — 5 Comments
December 19, 2009

Sometimes I’m afraid to do that with Word Press for fear of freaky shit happening and never being able to blog again. Because I blog so regularly these days. But if the opportunity wasn’t there, just in case I wanted to blog, I’d be pissed, I know I would. At any rate, the upgrade doesn’t seem to have borked anything, so that’s good.

I’m working on my final paper for my final class (final paper for pre-modern China class was turned in on Thursday). I think I’m going to be okay, since the prof says we should consider everything we’ve done so far in class as a draft, which I take to mean as “fair game, go ahead and put this in your paper verbatim if I didn’t say anything was wrong with it.” Now, I’m adding another four sources and looking for topics that can be researched further, but I still feel okay about it. I really want to ace it, though, because if I do, I could be looking at an A+ on my report card, something that has not happened since…well, I don’t know that it’s ever happened. I’ve gotten plenty of As, even in grad school, but an A+ on anything that wasn’t a quiz that had extra credit questions? No. And if I can get one on this, on the basis of three really good papers on Benjamin Franklin, I feel like I’ll have served him in much better stead than I did as an undergrad when I got a B on my senior thesis about him. Sorry, Ben. Trying to make it up to you…

I’m going to get back to that. It’s snowing and gross out anyway, so nothing better to do for the next several hours until the new Doctor Who special comes on anyway. Wish me luck!

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Testing

Filed Under: Technobabble by Julie — Comments Off
November 25, 2009

If I get this to work, it will be one more praise to the glory of Droid.

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Sooo….

Filed Under: Skool, Technobabble by Julie — 6 Comments
November 11, 2009

How’s it going, guys? Anyone still out there?

I’m at home today, awaiting a very important package from Fed Ex (there will be a separate post about it when I get it), and supposedly working on a paper for my Historiography class. Except my Macbook Pro battery is borked, so I started backing up files for that in prep for my Genius Bar appointment on Sunday morning and that took longer than I thought it would. But I felt so good about cleaning up stuff on my laptop that I thought, hmm, perhaps I should do the same thing for the blog. So I installed plugin updates and WordPress updates. And that was great, but it didn’t clear up the most annoying thing in the world, one of the reasons I have not blogged in so long because it just annoyed the crap out of me: my WYSIWYG toolbar was missing when I tried to post. You have no idea how annoying that is.

Yeah, turns out the fix was so easy I could kick myself. I went through a big long list of things it could be and looked for the easiest one, because Murphy’s Law is always in effect around me. And yes, it was a variation of that easiest one. I went into my WordPress profile, clicked the “Disable Visual Editor” button, saved it, went right back in and re-enabled it, and damned if my WYSIWYG isn’t back. *facepalm* I should have done that months ago, but didn’t have the patience. My tech fu, it comes and goes in cycles.

My writing lately has been either tweeting or one page critiques or papers, and it shows in this post. It’s like I have no idea how to blog anymore. With the WYSIWYG toolbar back, I’m going to try to fix that. I pay enough for this blog Well, actually, I don’t, my hosting company is really cheap, but I do pay for it, so I should start using it again.

But in the meantime, I should get back to writing this paper about Ben Franklin. So I’m going to do that.

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How are blogs and unwanted body hair alike?

Filed Under: Technobabble by Julie — 4 Comments
June 3, 2009

Apparently the answer is “If you don’t keep up with them, eventually you’re going to have to spend a really long time trimming both.” In the past three days, I have given my blog the equivalent of a thorough tweezing/waxing/ladyscaping. You may have been here one of the eleventy-million times I changed the theme, or the options, or the sidebars, or the header. You probably didn’t even notice the mess I was dealing with in the links section. I used to figure I was the only one using the links because they were on a separate page. Because of that, I wasn’t so hung up on figuring out who had stopped blogging, or moved URLs, or any of that, and when I just clicked through my blogroll, holy hell was that evident. But now that’s all straightened out, and to continue a metaphor that got old five minutes ago, my blog no longer has a unibrow.

I would like to come up with something really great to write about, but frankly, all that behind-the-scenes work exhausted me, so I’m going to go drink a beer and play some Wii and maybe even eat some dinner now. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.

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Just call me Locutus of Plurk

Filed Under: Technobabble, Urban Family by Julie — 4 Comments
July 1, 2008

And if you get that reference, baby let your geek flag fly!

Is it possible to be too connected to the ether? I wonder about this lately. In the past, I’ve had a habit of being very passionately interested in something on the internet, and then move on after a few months. IRC, Victor Garber (there was a website at one point…it is gone now), MySpace…the list could go on, but it would embarrass us both, so I’ll leave it. This blog is the one thing that has stood the test of time – it has been…holy crap, has it really been four years now? My blog is in pre-K? But of late I have let the blog lapse a little bit, because work has been too chaotic to come up with a single coherent thought, let alone blog about it, and the evenings…well, there are distractions in the evenings as well. My mind these days moves in short phrases, more suited to Facebook status messages than even Ravelry forum messages. Twitter would be good, but Twitter is often a little bitch and tells me I’m refreshing too much when clearly I am *not*. That annoys me. But Plurk, Plurk is cool. Plurk has a lot of knitters on it, so it resembles a cross between the beloved Facebook status message and IM, where we talk about socks and spinning a lot. That does it for me, I dunno about you.

And so I think in short bursts of third person thoughts, like “Evil Julie wants a jelly donut” and “Evil Julie is going on a ten-minute spin break, anyone in?”. Those do not make good blog posts, by the way, so my pre-K blog is probably being abused by the people running its daycare. My verbal skills are probably suffering, and looking back on that last sentence, it becomes quite obvious that my ability to come up with a decent metaphor has been compromised as well. And my attention span is not long enough to update Twitter (little bitch), Facebook, Ravelry, Plurk, and the blog. Sometimes, being this connected to the internets reminds me of the hive mind of the Borg…I haven’t lost the ability for independent thought, but I am always, always wondering “Has anyone written anything cool? What are these people up to? Have I blogged this week? No? Damn. Oooh, has anyone written anything in the past five seconds?” It is something I am going to have to work through. But I’m still taking my laptop with me when I hang out with Aimee and Sloth this weekend. So there.

(That last sentence totally caught your attention, didn’t it? Blog post when I get back. Promise.)

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Tip of the day

Filed Under: Technobabble by Julie — 4 Comments
June 19, 2008

“Don’t look into the sun.” Or not.

Those of you who are on Twitter or are addicted to Facebook status messages? I give you Plurk. Plurk is like a cross between Twitter and IM and chatrooms. You type in something you would like your friends to know, in 140 characters or less, and then they can comment on it. I’ve been Plurking with a bunch of knitters from Ravelry for two days and have been having a blast. Check it out. And if you do, look me up. I’m EvilJulie.

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