New Stuff

[hobgoblinn]

I'm having to create this entry manually, as my shiny new macbook, my birthday present-- it came to me on my birthday, my preciousssssss (refurbished, bottom of the line but I like it-- Thanks, President Bush) still isn't completely configured the way I want. I'll have to re-download xjournal and get my account information set up correctly in it-- it's crashing everytime I try to log in.

But just a quick note that ILP-07 is posted for anyone following it-- here's the link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4035989/7/

And the good news of the week is, I didn't get laid off. The bad news is-- the same thing. I didn't get laid off. No, I get to wait and watch the implosion from my ringside seat. I'll have to expound on the situation more when I'm not recovering from the late night consoling some of my fellows who did get laid off, a gathering at which I have dim memories of singing Michelle Branch's "Goodbye to You" and not so dim memories afterward of being sicker than I have been in my entire life. I am getting too old for this stuff. But somebody kept refilling my beer glass from the pitcher, and then there was the raspberry margarita the bar gave me for my birthday. Um, yeah. Least I had a designated driver. And I did not yak in their car.

But I have a macbook, it has my writing software and iTunes library on it and will get the rest of my files migrated over tonight. So I won't lose anything when they want my macbook pro back when they cut us loose.

Thanks for all the Mother's Day and Birthday wishes on the f-list. I'm really touched, you guys. I'l catch up more later-- I'm off now to pick up Wee Hob and see what he bought me with the $20 I lent him for the purpose.

And Happy Mother's Day to all the moms on my f-list!

Comments

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday!

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Thanks muchly!

[angelmischa.livejournal.com]

Ouchies. Work situation sounds aggravating. A very, very happy birthday, though! (I was going to try to make you a banner/something for ILP, but my photoshop skills were rather overtaxed making a simple header for TNL (check out the new possible layouts if you get a chance. I'm dithering!)... I really need to figure that photoshop stuff out!)

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I haven't had a chance to get over to tnl yet (I read it from my own journal's friend page layout usually.) I'll try to drop by later and tell you what I think. I'd love to see anything you come up with for ILP. Visual arts are not at all my thing, sadly.

[clavally.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, did I miss your birthday?? I feel like such a heel.

Well, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, anyway?

*hugs*

We should compare notes on companies imploding. Mine appears to be doing the same thing.

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

You did not at all miss my birthday-- it was today. The past tense was a kind of garbled quote from Gollum....

And yeah, when I get xjournal up and running, I'll have to post on my work situation. Sorry to hear you're going through something similar.

[father-turtle.livejournal.com]

It was your birthday? I'm sorry I missed it.

HAPPY BELATED!

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Not at all belated-- my past tense in the post was a kind of garbled quote. I really did turn another year older today. Thanks for the kind wishes.

[empresspatti.livejournal.com]

Happy Mother's Day and Happy Birthday. You are a joy.

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and Happy Mother's Day to you, as well.

[nemaihne.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday and Happy Mother's Day! Hope it was doubly good to you and am waiting on pins and needles to find what Wee Hob came up with.

[snarkysneak.livejournal.com]

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! On getting your macbook! Is it a black one or a white one? Oh and happy late birthday. I've been getting on LJ only once or twice a week lately so I miss a lot of things. Also, SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! on the new chapter. I've already read it and I liked it alot. Snoopy dance. I don't really know what to say about the job thing. I can, however, sypathise on the other part. I have a vague recollection of much rum, vodka, and absinthe mixed with kareoke on Saturday night/Sunday morning though I didn't get sick. Can you believe that my insomnia kept me from sleeping more than 3.5 hours after that? Have a wonderful day.

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks. Lucky I went ahead and did this now, as the IT guys were at work today and personal software is most definitely Not allowed on Work machines. Our old company didn't know enough to care, and the boss who was the driving force behind out getting macbook pros was very much in favor of our doing personal things to give us practice at navigating the slightly different interface, and to have something interesting to look at when spying on us (he was fired for many reasons, but the using his Mac knowledge to remotely see what we were doing or to look at files, including chats and emails, even from personal accounts, was one of the chief reasons.)

At any rate, his one contribution to my life was converting me to the Mac. I have a refurbished, bottom of the line macbook (white), and it is quite shiny. It has more room than I'll probably ever need for music writing software, novel/ story writing, and iTunes and Firefox. I won't be able to use it to log in from home like I was hoping, which rather sucks, but another company may let me set up my personal machine to be able to have remote access. So that will be cool.

Thanks for the kind words on the story. Did you leave a review? I am such a review whore. And I need to get back to rereading the whole thing and seeing what other continuity and logic errors I have introduced into the mix, and try to come up with a way to fix them. Scrivener has a lot of cool spots for me to record those notes and observations, and I think in the future I'll be able to keep better track of themes and issues I need to revisit.

I didn't have insomnia, but I woke up pretty much at my normal time on Sunday, thanks to my alarm. And a Slight headache which could well have been allergy/ sinus induced at this time of year. I was actually lucky to get as sick as I got, as most of the badness was out of my system before I went to bed.

Thanks again for the kind squees. A wonderful day to you, also.

[snarkysneak.livejournal.com]

I do all sorts of stuff at work that I'm sure I'm not allowed to do with my laptop. They are the ones who screwed up and didn't block access from my personal machine. Well, to be fair, they are probably a lot more lenient with the Ph.D. students because we are constantly writing manuscripts and grants and more often than not use our own machines for the convenience value. I used to hate Mac especially after a long two years in a lab I hated. However, after many computer issues, I have converted. My Macbook is the black one and it is wonderful. I'm a little annoyed that the black ones have a matte finish and therefore show EVERY fingerprint whether or not you wash your hands immediately before touching it.

As for leaving a review....I'm bad...very bad. I tend not to leave them. In fact, despite the fact that I am co-author on a few fanfictions, I don't even have a fanfiction.net account. I am a self admitted lurker. If you like, I'll try to review, but you are more likely to get a response on your LJ than on the story itself. Sorry...I'm bad. By the way, what is Scrivener? I ask for my co-author. She is the one who actually types stuff out and posts it because I don't have enough time for the writing I NEEEEED to do let alone fics. She also does publishable writing of her own and she may be interested.

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

I was tempted by the black shiny, but I couldn't justify the additional cost in my case. And several people told me, online and in person, that you pay quite a bit just for the color.

As to scrivener, I was squeeing about it a few entries back. I looked up the scrivener tag so you can see them all. 2 of the 3 entries have links to the site: http://hobgoblinn.livejournal.com/tag/scrivener

You can download the 30 day trial and see what you think. This is the first program like it I've seen that hasn't made me give up and go back to Word or Pages because it's so damned complicated. You can do cool, complicated things with it, but the complications don't get in your way and the program itself doesn't make you memorize the tutorial before you can do anything useful. It seems a bit like Perl in that way-- lots of ways to get what you want, and as your proficiency improves, you start to see other possible ways to get there and look for the documentation and syntax that would work. And having everything in one virtual binder and the ability to switch between sections/ views/ notes easily is proving very beneficial.

Scrivener's home page also has some non-mac options and links for those who don't use macs. I have to say, I'm impressed with the stability and versatility of the mac, and how fun and cool its applications tend to be. Am also an iTunes junkie. The corporate IT guy seems nice enough and mellow, but I'm glad I got all my stuff off this machine before they started looking at it.

Better get back to it. My test should be just about done running by now. happy day to you.