I spent a few minutes, just now, watching my soup mug of hot tea (sweetened with honey and colored with milk) offer up delicate tendrils of dancing steam. The liquid is a darkish tan held by white china and was set in just the right position, vis-a-vis my desk lamp, to reflect light through the vapors drifting up from it. And they shifted and curled and spun in glowing lines across the hot fluid, reminding me of the Northern Lights and their whispery moves. A surprising moment of magic.
I'm back to recharging my batteries after the push on IF. I can't rush this, no matter how much I might want to; I need time to regain my creative strength, such as it is. So I'm using this down time to update my computers. I just added fresh RAM to my Mac Mini -- it's up to a whole 2 gigs now --and this weekend I'll be installing Snow Leopard into my laptop, then I'll go on up to Lion.
My Mac Mini can handle Leopard well and Snow Leopard if it has to, but I'm not going to push it. I'll be using it for word processing, mainly, since none of my programs will work on Lion and I just can't afford to put out $300 for Office, right now. Hell, I'm barely able to meet my bills, this month, thanks to paying my taxes. I'd have set up a payment plan, but the IRS friggin' gouges you on fees and interest. It was a better deal to put a couple thousand on my MC, that's how ridiculous it was.
So I'm shambling along, as usual, right at the edge. I guess my next goal is to sit down, find out what all the services I have are honestly worth and start trimming back. For example, I have Verizon Fios, which I'm not all that enamored of. But it's the only internet service offered in my building. So maybe I could set up an unlimited data plan with Sprint, which would be usable anywhere I can get a Sprint signal, and that would help me in my work.
But if I get rid of Fios, I'll be getting rid of cable and the land-line expenses. Which may be a problem because the land-line is needed for faxing. Except...you can now send and receive faxes online, so I'd need to find out what kind of program I'd need for that and if I can do it with my laptop or Mac Mini.
It's at the point where you need to either spend all your free time researching or be a PhD in physics just to keep up with all the "advances" in computers. None of which is really free.
This is what I get for not being a computer nerd or cyber-punk.
I'm back to recharging my batteries after the push on IF. I can't rush this, no matter how much I might want to; I need time to regain my creative strength, such as it is. So I'm using this down time to update my computers. I just added fresh RAM to my Mac Mini -- it's up to a whole 2 gigs now --and this weekend I'll be installing Snow Leopard into my laptop, then I'll go on up to Lion.
My Mac Mini can handle Leopard well and Snow Leopard if it has to, but I'm not going to push it. I'll be using it for word processing, mainly, since none of my programs will work on Lion and I just can't afford to put out $300 for Office, right now. Hell, I'm barely able to meet my bills, this month, thanks to paying my taxes. I'd have set up a payment plan, but the IRS friggin' gouges you on fees and interest. It was a better deal to put a couple thousand on my MC, that's how ridiculous it was.
So I'm shambling along, as usual, right at the edge. I guess my next goal is to sit down, find out what all the services I have are honestly worth and start trimming back. For example, I have Verizon Fios, which I'm not all that enamored of. But it's the only internet service offered in my building. So maybe I could set up an unlimited data plan with Sprint, which would be usable anywhere I can get a Sprint signal, and that would help me in my work.
But if I get rid of Fios, I'll be getting rid of cable and the land-line expenses. Which may be a problem because the land-line is needed for faxing. Except...you can now send and receive faxes online, so I'd need to find out what kind of program I'd need for that and if I can do it with my laptop or Mac Mini.
It's at the point where you need to either spend all your free time researching or be a PhD in physics just to keep up with all the "advances" in computers. None of which is really free.
This is what I get for not being a computer nerd or cyber-punk.
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