Category Archives: computers

it’s baaaack…

04 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, geekiness

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My good deed for the day was setting up a user account for Peter on Shadow this morning. Because even as bogged down as Shadow is at the moment (must clear out files soon) he is still much faster than Sexy Beast, which is what Peter has been using. And I was rewarded for my time when I was looking at programmes on Shadow to see what was no longer necessary and suddenly saw “Fuentes” and thought… aha! So I copied my Century Gothic files onto Dropbox and then installed them on the Greyhound and I HAVE MY CENTURY GOTHIC BACK!!!

I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this before. I feel seriously duh. But also so pleased to have all my blogs back to looking as intended. Except now of course I realise that a rather lot of you guys are probably not seeing the sites properly…

But welcome back, Century Gothic. How I’ve missed you!

meet the greyhound

28 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, geekiness, retail therapy, work

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I had a feeling this was going to happen this week. On Monday after uploading more photos into Shadow I had less than 10 GBs of hard disk space left and thought that if FNAC put on one of their “Día de Socios” (members’ day) I would go and get a new laptop, as I would get 10% off. Two days later I got a text message from FNAC telling me about the next one and so on Thursday morning I showed up ready to get the steel-blue 15.6″ Toshiba I’d been looking at. And then I saw The Greyhound. It’s the same one that I mentioned here but as it was now in stock I could actually see what it looked like. And I have to say it looks pretty sleek and the cover is also quite attractive, like silver and grey tiny-square graph paper under glass. I think the salesclerk was a bit surprised when I asked him to confirm the specs for me and then said, “okay, I’ll take it”. The entire transaction took less than five minutes. But of course I’d done all my research previously.

I have to say I’m very pleased with the new beast, though it will still take me awhile to get him all set up (bookmarks are taking forever). It’s quite nice having a big screen (17.3″) again and, with all my photos and programmes installed, I still have 470 GBs of hard drive available. Yay! But it’ll take some time to get used to Windows 7. One very annoying thing about it is that it doesn’t come with Century Gothic installed, which is the font I use on all my websites, including this blog. It’s actually quite disturbing to think that everyone on a Mac or using Windows 7 doesn’t get to see my sites as I’ve set them up – in another font it just doesn’t look right and the spacing also goes wonky. So I immediately got online to download Century Gothic, somehow chose a dodgy site in my haste, and ended up with a malicious browser highjacker called Babylon, which was a bugger to get rid of. Thanks to Sledpress for the additional help with Firefox!

Also thanks to Sled for suggesting this name. I’d been going back and forth between a couple of possible computer names, but as this one is grey and sleek and fast “Greyhound” fits. It also fits because Pat used to foster rescued greyhounds, and was as gadget-crazy as I am, so this is yet another way of keeping her in my thoughts.

dinosaur toes

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in computers, food & drink, sevilla, spain, tapas

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They really do look like dinosaur toes, don’t they? They are actually goose barnacles, called percebes in Spanish, and I have been dying to try them ever since I first heard about them. Why? Well, why the hell not? Recently I heard that one of my favourite seafood tapas bars – La Moneda – has been serving percebes and I asked them if they could let me know the next time they got some in. Turned out that was today! Not the best timing as Peter and I had just stopped off for a couple of tapitas with my familia at Bodeguita Romero – celebrating my shiny new laptop purchase (more on that later!) – and after our second tapa I got a Twitter message from Isidro that the percebes had landed.

So we high-tailed it out of the Bodeguita and headed over to La Moneda, with new laptop slung over shoulder – luckily it was only about a five-minute walk away – and upon arrival a plate of steaming percebes were placed in front of us. My first reaction was “eep! now what?” but Isidro quickly instructed us on how to eat them. You grab them at each end and then give them a sharp twist and a yank, after which the “claw” of the toe pulls away with a delectible morsel of deliciousness dangling off the end of it. What Isidro failed to mention was how squirty they are! At the first twist water shot out everywhere (usually all over me!) and I never did manage to get as clean a severing between claw and toe as Isidro did. But man! These guys are very tasty – not to mention prohibitively expensive! – but Isidro gave me a deal since it was my first time.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

time to upgrade?

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, geekiness, work

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I’ve been thinking of upgrading lately and am just ever-so-slightly miffed with myself for buying the iPad before a new laptop, but oh well. Shadow’s hard drive is pretty overloaded by now and I’m at a loss as to what files to eliminate (gosh, 3 years ago 250 GBs seemed like so much space!) and so I’ve been looking around. I still like Toshiba though lately their designs have been, well, kinda ugly. I did see a nice brushed metal one I liked, another 15 inch like Shadow, with pretty good specs. Then the guy at FNAC told me about this Satellite L870-10Z. For the same price (700€) I can get a 17 inch screen and a whole whack of RAM and HD. Which I think makes more sense than getting a smaller one as I really just want this one for working at home. When/if I travel I can either take the iPad or else a wiped-clean Shadow.

Thing is, this one has to be ordered in and I don’t actually know what it looks like. From this photo taken from the FNAC website it just looks plain dark grey, like Shadow is, which would be fine. But what if it ends up with some dodgy pattern on it? I know this shouldn’t matter, but it does. What I’d really like is another Sexy Beast, but ever since they discontinued that model Toshiba stopped doing sexy. So as long as this new beast isn’t plaid or anything I’m thinking I might go for it. I could probably have it paid off by Christmas if tapas tours continue to go well (and my flatmate gets some work!). But then I wonder if I should wait until after the next PET scan in September… what do you think? I hate putting my life on hold like that, but if the worst happens then I’ll need the extra cash to live on. On the other hand, having an efficient computer to work on from home would also help. Anyhow, you can see the specs below…
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quite interesting

23 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, television

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OMG! I have just got hooked on a tv programme that’s been running for 8 years! If there is anyone other than me who has never seen QI, it’s a BBC quiz show hosted by the super fabby Stephen Fry (heh, he’s one of my followers on Twitter).

Apparently QI is a 26-year-long project with each series covering topics that begin with a different letter of the alphabet. So instead of “series 1” the first series is called “series A” and so forth. I wonder if they will keep going until the end of the alphabet.

The other day I was looking at getting a new Blu-Ray player to replace my 12-year-old DVD player. A slightly more expensive model had a WiFi option so I could watch YouTube stuff on the telly and I thought “pah! don’t need that!”. Now I’m not so sure, especially as QI and lots of other older programmes can be found on YouTube these days. Technology, eh?