Visit the kelpforest....

Technology and I are not getting along lately.

Last week I came back from lunch to hear a funny, cricket-sounding noise from somewhere on my desk. After some searching around, I discovered it was coming from my little portable 500 GB Seagate FreeAgent drive. I unplugged it and then plugged it back in, and nothing was now recognized on the drive. After our IT person checked with someone else, she told me I could either try to get a new unit as it's only about 6 months old and should still be under warantee, or taking it apart and trying to recover what's on there, with only a 30% chance of getting anything back. She also mentioned they need to be treated like gems - which I really had been trying to do.

I mentioned earlier that neither of the browsers were connecting on our home PC, and after thinking to check for viruses, I couldn't get the AVG Free menu to come up either (everything else connecting was fine). However, I think the newest version of Gareth's Orbiter game/spaceflight simulator was causing an incompatibility - when I uninstalled that everything started working again. I scanned everything with TrendMicro Housecall - which didn't find anything but an older version of another of his flight simulators, which I knew had an issue - and also installed Microsoft Security Essentials, which also didn't find anything. Everything seemed to working ok for about a week or so, and then yesterday, the system rebooted and I have a "\Config\System is missing or corrupt - use original CD to repair" - which I don't have. Grrr.

This morning I pulled out my new (to me) work cell, and it seems dead. I plugged it in to charge and I'm only getting the Verizon banner for a few seconds. Did it get damp when we went to beach Saturday? God, I hope not, it didn't seem like it it, but it doesn't seem to be charging either. I'll stick it in a bag of rice when I get home; but CRAP!

One thing after another. I like to think I've got a handle on the gadgety stuff, but Deities of tech, what did I do to offend?

I guess I just don't talk on the phone much. Out of the first month of a plan that gives me 300 minutes a month, I used 62. Worth it for the internet access though, and still less than I was paying. Maybe that's not such a good idea though. I'm wearing out the battery and have to charge the damn thing every single day.

Well, yay, I now have a working cell phone again. Not that it was actually broken, but in my ineptness I misplaced the wall plug charger for it, and for a little was relying on the car charger I bought at a truck stop in Monterey when we were up there for a staff meeting in January. Now this thing was nifty because it had interchangeable tips you could get for different phones and other devices (there was a whole rotating carousel of them), and I had the smart idea of hey, we can get for for runsamuck's phone, the iPods, and various other gadgets. Maybe the GPS too, since I seem to have lost track of that charger as well (how can you lose that stoopid - it's a CAR charger and it should stay in the CAR!). Well, not only does the car socket seem to be going wonky, the tip for my phone completely disintegrated a few weeks ago. I have searched in vain for another source for the interchangeable tips, but haven't been able to find them, so the last time it died, it stayed dead. I was considering going to get a cheap phone to replace it as I have to travel for work this weekend and I will need one.

A couple of days ago, runsamuck was looking for something else and found my charger plugged into the power strip on my side of the bed. Duh. Ah well, not like it's been ringing off the hook anyway. Charged it up, checked it and am pleased to see there's a new browser for it that I can actually download (Opera Mini). I can actually check LJ with it and see pictures! It's like I'm in the 21st Century or something! Whoopee snort!

Grrr. My cell phone has gone missing. I only noticed Monday afternoon when it wasn't in its case on my backpack and thought then I'd left it on my desk. However, it wasn't there the next morning and searching through my backpack and lunch bag (ostensibly for lunch but winds up holding whatever I throw in it when I'm too lazy to stop and unzip zippers) produced a distinct lack of phone. Tried calling it in hopes of hearing it in a forgotten corner, but now it's rolling right into voicemail, so either the battery has run out or whoever picked it up turned it off. I hope I didn't leave on the bus. That means a trip to the transit authority office to check the lost and found, whether I did or not, I suppose. I'm not too upset about the phone itself; although it was fairly new, there's only $10 worth of time on it, so it's not like I'm getting ripped off there. I'm miffed I've lost the little glow-in-dark Naruto charm I got at Anime Expo last year and my little year-of-the-tiger charm. And I'll have to enter all those numbers over. Again, grrr.

One of the things that excited me about my iPod was the fact that I could put text files on it, and I thought I could use it to read things on the bus. I was very disappointed to find that yes, I can put all the text files I want on it; however, if you try to read them, it truncates after about a page and a half. The cut-off was about 4-5K. I actually took a file and divided it up into 5K bits - which worked, but it was a pain in the ass to do, and to have to change files so often when reading. So I gave that up as a bust.

Then a few months ago, I was looking for a recording device I could keep with me and pull out to record some of my dad's crazy stories when he starts them. And I found this thingy at Fry's, among the small mp3 players. It's a bit thicker than a Nano but not as tall, with the same amount of memory. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that this little gadget does more stuff than the 'pod. Plays music, records, FM radio (WHY does iPOD not have this?!), plays back recordings, photos, and video! Granted, the screen is tiny and and the resolution is not great, but whaddya expect for something less than a third of the price. Also the MP4 on the front is misleading - it's part of the brand name. It does not play mp4s directly; you have to convert them to .avi format with the included software, and because the screen is square instead of rectangular, photos and video get trimmed a bit on the sides. But I didn't buy it for that, so that doesn't bother me so much. The buttons are not all that intuitive and sometimes do unexpected things. However, I was thrilled to find that text files are not truncated on this thing - or at least it'll accept a much larger text file before doing so. I found the cut-off is about 64kb - enough for a good sized chunk of text. I downloaded a fanfic to read on my commute and found that I only had to divide up a few, very long, chapters, and then only into two chunks. The screen does divide up words in odd places, but I've gotten used to it pretty easily.

Yes, I suppose I could have gotten a different gadget specifically for reading, but it would probably be bigger and a lot more expensive. I just hope I don't wear out the scroll button too fast.

Well, I was going donate at least couple to Wil Wheaton's fave - Gmail4Troops.com - but they were flush, last time I checked.

So, I have 5 4 GMail invites. Maybe not so convenient for LJ responses (it likes to chain unrelated ones together, but at least you can stick them all in one folder) but I'm willing to put up with that for the filtering and searching capabilities and the massive storage (1GB). I know some of you already have it, but any other takers? (Might be good if you have trouble getting large attachments - hint, hint)

Edit: You can either email me or leave a comment (I've screened them).