Brummie Blogger

New toys

The spreadsheet and word processor in Works are pants. Seriously pants. And all that came with my laptop was Works. On the desktop PC I have Office 2003. Yes it's old. It runs XP but it works, although very, very slowly. Which is why I usually prefer to play work on my laptop. But Works is pants. You see my dilemma?

I love organising stuff in Excel. I have all my To Be Read books in it. All the 1001 books are listed in it with lots of bells and whistles so I can arrange them how I want, and mark off which ones I have on Mt. TBR, which ones I'm in a bookring for and which ones I've read. It keeps track of how many of each there are, by number and percentage. I had great fun working out how to do all that too.

Works doesn't do any of that. You can't even use pretty colours. It's pants.

A couple of days ago I cracked. I couldn't cope any more. I'd been looking at Excel for a while but it's so expensive and I really couldn't justify it. Then I spotted that if I bought Office suite 2010, it was actually cheaper and I'd get Word and a couple of other programs too.

I've just installed it.

It looks very different to Office 2003. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun figuring out what all those tabs and whotnots do.

I'm in software heaven.

The Dark Side

I said I'd never do it but today I finally gave in to the inevitable and bought a Kindle. I had a huge wodge of Tesco vouchers so I've treated myself for my birthday.

I've said over and over again that digital books aren't 'real' books and I've turned my nose up at all the various e-readers. I tried reading on my DS and didn't particularly get on with it. No, I was convinced that nothing could replace paper. I love the smell of it, the feel of it and the look of it. I love having walls lined with bookcases. An e-reader just wasn't going to do it.

But here I am with a shiny new Kindle. I've been thinking about it for a while. I've seen a friend's Kindle, and talked to other friends about theirs. It'll be an awful lot easier going on holiday if I don't have to take fourteen books with me. I can access all those lovely free books, and there are short stories only available in digital form. It's light to hold and much easier to read than some of the chunky bricks I've been reading lately. Especially when you consider that I tend to read one-handed when I'm eating.

It had to be done. I've finally gone over to the Dark Side.

I've been playing with it all afternoon and now have quite a few books on it. All free ones apart from one. I've taken the advice of one of my friends (thanks Tree) and have bought myself a gift voucher to buy books with. Well, actually, I sent it to myself from Stephen with the message "Happy Birthday" on it. I thought he'd like to do that for me.

I had a bit of a 'mare getting it do the wireless thing as the router is locked down tight, but I got them to talk to each other in the end.

It won't replace real books, of course. It's just a supplement to my ever increasing library. But it's a fun supplement and I'm going to enjoy playing with it.

Getting to grips with Vista

It's pretty much like XP really, only shinier and that may just be the posh screen on the new laptop, I suppose. So far everything is where I thought it should be and I now have itunes all set up with most of my music library transferred over from the PC.

And boy, wasn't that fun! I'd been using a transfer cable to move stuff between the old XP laptop and the PC but the transfer cable doesn't support Vista. Of course it doesn't. Cue much rolling of eyes. After much internet research I've come to the conclusion that it really is going to be much simpler to transfer the odd bits of music etc. over using a DVD-RW. So, 4GB at a time, an assortment of music and photos have been transferred over. I'm thinking of investing in a small USB drive for moving small amounts of data inbetween the two to save faffing about with discs in the future but that's done the job for now.

I've been testing the laptop just to see what the quality of the video and sound are like, using some music videos - by The Killers, of course. It's not bad, not bad at all. It really is odd getting used to the super shiny WLED screen on it after the matt screen on the PC but videos and photos look very good indeed on it.

And, having set up links to my favourite websites on IE, I'm now blogging on it. I really must get a nice wireless mouse though. I loathe using the slidey thing.

Right, perhaps I'll just watch a couple more Killers videos, just to test this screen a bit more...

I'm not having fun

My new laptop arrived yesterday and spent the day having its battery charged. I thought it was very restrained of me not to start playing straight away, actually. I even did all my housework before turning it on today.

I wish I hadn't bothered now.

Before I can do anything with it, I need to get it talking to my wireless router. Shouldn't be difficult. I've set up Stephen's laptop - twice, and the Wii. This should only take a minute, right? Wrong. Two attempts and several hours later and it's now sitting in the cupboard where I can't see it. I do not need this much frustration after the shitty week that I've had. This was supposed to be cheering me up.

I've done the ipconfig thing on the laptop to get the number to put into the router permissions. Ok, that's not the technical terms but I know I've done that bit right - I've done it enough times - and I googled it anyway to double check. I've gone over the router settings to make sure everything is ok and it is.

The laptop has wireless turned on, it can see the router, but when I try to input the password, it goes into standby. When I eventually get it to stay on long enough to get the password input it refuses to connect and won't tell me why. It does it very fast and very prettily on its shiny new screen but it's getting very annoying.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. And that, I think, is what's irritating me more than anything. I've given up and I hate to give up.

Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. I think I'll go and curl up with a good book now. Books don't crash, go into standby, refuse to connect or generally misbehave. I like that about them.

Whoo - flippin' - hoo.

I just had a bit of a mishap. You know those online shopping mishaps that happen to us all? This one was a doozy, even for me. I've been selling stuff on Ebay and other places with the aim of getting enough dosh to get a new laptop.

I'd got quite a bit but the laptop I wanted was a bit out of reach. Well, actually it was quite a lot out of reach. Dell do keep having offers though so I was confident that at some point they'd have an offer I could afford on the laptop I'd set my sights on. Tonight, I got the email with that precise offer. Well, almost. It was still just a little bit out of reach.

It  had everything I wanted. Separate graphics card, decent hard drive and processor, and a fair amount of memory. No frills, but plenty of power to do the job I wanted. And, it was fifty quid more than I had in my PayPal account.

On the offchance, I checked Quidco to see if I could get any better offers through them and to my deep, deep joy found that finally the cash back on my car insurance had come through and I had 75 quid in my account. As that's linked to the same bank account as my PayPal account I reckoned it was fair game and went ahead and ordered that laptop. Whoo - flippin' - hoo!

I got me a purty new laptop!

Happy now.

Very happy.

That was exciting!

I'd forgotten just how much fun selling on Ebay could be. My four Swarovski items just finished. All sold and all did well. One item got two bids in the last thirty seconds and shot up another ten quid. Not that I was obsessively refreshing the page or anything...

I've prepared another five items to upload but these almost certainly won't do as well as I don't have the boxes for them. Three are retired items though so you never know. I've found some other bits round the house that might sell so now I've got the bug again I'll put those up over the weekend.

The most exciting thing to happen today though was the phone call from DFS. The sofas are coming tomorrow. Funny thing is, they did say it would be between six and twelve weeks for delivery. I was going to ring them tomorrow as it will be exactly twelve weeks. Looks like they're just going to make it then.

If only the TV would turn up we could move into our shiny new living room. We had a phone call last week to arrange delivery. We agreed on a day and then the next day they phoned us to arrange delivery. We were a bit puzzled and explained that we'd already spoken to someone the previous day and done just that. Apparently they had no record of it and there was no way they could deliver then anyway. We suggested today as we'd both be in all day. That seemed as if it might be a problem but they said they'd see if it was possible and phone back to confirm. We've heard nothing since. It can come any time between 8am and 8pm so there's two hours left before we'll know if it's coming today or not. We can't contact them as we don't have a contact number and the retailer only has an email address and won't pass it on to us. Great.

But, I'm still excited 'cause my Ebay items all sold *grin*

Potentially better luck

Aha! Swarovski seems to be the way to go. I listed four pieces on Ebay yesterday and they are all being watched. One, a retired piece, has eight watchers. I have high hopes for that one as there's one identical to mine currently selling with four people bidding on it and with three hours to go it's price is at £100. With a bit of luck the people who don't win it will bid on mine. So, I don't have any bids yet, but I'm optimistic.

The pieces that I've listed all have the original boxes and if they do well I'll try the remaining ones that don't have the original boxes. I'm just concerned about packaging them up safely enough. I need to find some sturdy boxes for them methinks.

And finally, the last layout to be uploaded from the Vegas album. I can start to bore you all with Disney ones now...

I needed just one last single layout to finish off the Vegas album. As I'd had a choice of photos to use from the Skywalk, I decided to use one of those, if only to remind me that my husband is completely and utterly stark staring bonkers. That's glass he's sitting on, you know. Nothing underneath it for hundreds of feet. It makes me queasy just thinking about it and there he is sitting there all relaxed as if he's sitting on the floor at home watching tv. Gah!

Costco papers, prima flowers, assorted brads and photo turns and a bit of ric-rac.

Luck - or the lack of it

I'm not having much luck on Ebay at the moment. I have some books that just aren't Bookcrossing material so I thought I'd Ebay them having had success with similar books in the past. I spent a fair bit of time last weekend photographing them and typing them into Turbolister. 42 of them to be precise. I love selling on Ebay. It's the thrill of seeing when people have viewed your listing, if it's being watched and of course - when you get bids. Not so exciting when with one day to go you have 42 listings with no bids and nothing being watched. Sigh.

I ended up with one book selling. Hardly worth it, was it. I'll relist them at some point but not just yet. Maybe it's not a good time for books at the moment.

I had a bit of bad luck with buying on there too. I may have mentioned that Stephen has killed the CD/DVD drive on his laptop. I can't fix it. It's still in guarantee, allegedly but as the company that made it are no longer in existence thanks to a certain PM, there's no chance of getting it fixed. So, the next best thing, to keep it functional until a replacement can be afforded, is an external drive. And, where better to get one than Ebay? I found a beauty. Just what I wanted. Used twice, the seller had a perfect rating and good feedback and answered a query quickly. I worked out the max I'd want to pay, deducted the postage and placed my bid. With five minutes to go I was the only bidder. I know that many people only bid in the last few minutes so I walked away so as not to be tempted to bid more. It wouldn't have mattered. I was outbid with two seconds to spare. Two seconds! Gah!

Problem is, I think I've got the Ebay bug again. I've started looking round the house for stuff to sell. I'm eyeing up some rather twee Swarovski at the moment. I wonder...

Finally!

Yup, finally I'm back after another marathon migraine, and finally I have my DS fully pimped.

These were the ingredients

  

These plus a load of software. It was the software that gave me the problems. One of the sites that I needed to access had been attacked and was temporarily down. I managed to source the software download at an alternative site, after some searching, but after loading it all on, the DS would not work. Something was obviously missing. I think the problem is that they assume a higher level of techy competence than I possess so it took me longer to figure it all out. But, I hate to admit that something is beyond me so I persevered.

Once I realised that there was a key piece of software missing, and then tracked it down and downloaded it, I came across another snag. It was zipped with Winrar. I don't have Winrar but I did have a trial of it once. As that had expired I was a bit stumped, as it wouldn't, of course, let me download another trial. I didn't particularly want to shell out thirty euros for the licence, as I only wanted it for one file and still wasn't completely sure that I'd be able to get it all to work. 

I came up with a cunning plan, which is probably rather naughty so I won't go into details but after some fiddling I got the unzipped files onto the micro SD and into the DS. 

Hooray! It loaded. Ah, but still not quite right. The SD card went back into the PC and I spent some time fiddling with the files. It was a case of getting the right folders set up in the right places. Eventually I got there and this is the result.

 

If you click on the above picture, you should be able to see that I'm about to start reading Vanity fair. How cool is that!

The following sites were very useful:

Pimping your DS
R4DS
Readmore
Project Gutenberg

Pimping my DS

I'm currently in the process of pimping my DS. That's what it's called according to the website whose instructions I'm following, anyway. I saw this ad on TV, you see, for a DS cart with 100 classic books on it. With that you could use the DS as an e-book reader to read said classic books. It sounded good so I investigated only to find out that I'd either read or have on my TBR pile, all but ten of the books.

Hmm, so I was still looking at it and following a few links, as you do, and found out that you can pimp your DS to make it into an e-book reader to use with the free books that are available to download. This sounded very good so I did yet more research. It didn't sound too techy so I ordered the gadgets I needed for about £20 and waited impatiently for them to arrive. I also downloaded a couple of books and the required homebrew software

I have the gadgets in front of me now and have put the software and books in the required folders on the micro SD card. The next step is to insert the SD card in the R4, put it in the DS and turn it on. This is where I hit a snag. I've been so wrapped up in reading lately that my poor DS has been neglected. It needs charging.

In hindsight I should have made sure it was charged up and ready to rock before the gadgets arrived but no, here I am, all my gadgets and gizmos laid out on the desk with my DS sitting upstairs charging.

I'll update tomorrow and let you know if project Pimp my DS has worked.

In the meantime I'll go and start a new book, having just finished The ragged trousered philanthropists. That was a very good book indeedy. It did get slightly tedious towards the end when the 'causes of poverty' and the 'way to eliminate poverty' were gone over in detail for the umpteenth time, but all in all it was as enjoyable as such a book can be.