"...We Interrupt To Opine About Technical Difficulties."

(Actually written week of: 8/13 - 8/18, but didn't get it edited and up until today.)

I am dog sitting all this week and have permission to use Maria and John's eMac while I'm here. Their system is much more complex then mine and I am VERY careful not to install things that may tear it all up!. (I did that once, with some. Bible software. Poor John had a three-hour trial by fire, undoing whatever my program did to the system!)

So, I use what is here and don't modify things. Got latest updates for Tiger, but not for firefox... They have yahoo DSL and when I need firefox, I have to leave the other browser running, or the DSL connection gets confused (oh sigh!)

So, here I am, not really angry, but amused at what happens when my high magnification meets a friend's blog. I also have an amazing "startle" reflex. If I hear a sound I'm not expecting, or accustomed to, I basically try to leap into the air. One hand flies off keyboard and mouse-hand shoves the mouse, God-only-knows-where! I choose to laugh and smile at these things. This system is a bit slower for me, but I'm physically comfortable and in no pain.

CyberGal has a very active cyber social life. I have more cyber pals, then actual physical people I know in my neighborhood! I downloaded and installed both Skype and Adium on this machine to keep in contact with my Cyber Pals. On my machine at home I have customized both programs to where they only make sounds for in-coming messages. I'm used to these sounds and quickly switch between my current project and a instant message chat, or phone call.

On this machine I am stuck with default settings. And my nervous system has been getting a workout. I hope to meet the programmer who designed the alert sound for a buddy coming on or going off Adium. It sounds like a duck on LSD! The alert sounds for incoming and outgoing messages are really hysterical. A really bad attempt at "deflate" and "inflate". They both kind of sound like a moose in pain. So, here I am, creating a stupendous, outrageous email and this strange sound blasts through the speakers - "oh look ma- she's airborne."

As I'm getting used to this set up, I don't jump as much, but it still kills me, when I get that sound of well, passing gas, or an animal in pain. So, I'm exploring a new thing I found on google. Their google labs. A place where stuff they are still developing can be tried out and talked about. This is the technical side of me. I love playing with new software, or hardware, for that matter. So, I'm settling down and playing with some cool programs. Then: "Let the system conflicts begin!"

Their default browser is Safari, which is fine, but google labs won't function with safari. Fine, so I launch firefox. No dice, they don't have the newest Mac update! Oh, well. I'll save my google play for when I get home.

I'm working under high magnification, which means I'm only actually seeing a little part of the full screen at any one time. Depending on the font size, 4 to 6 words across and 3 to 4 lines down. So, I surf over to Phillip's blog - no new post, but he has google ads installed. They ads are content sensitive. In an earlier post he'd spoken of having a rash. So, I am hovering my mouse near his blog photo and just happen to see "cat rash". I talk to myself, computers, walls and anything else around. So I queried: "How in the world did he get THAT?" I then slid the mouse over to the beginning of the line and realized I was looking at an ad link!

Maria and John have never launched iTunes (!) So, I'm hesitant to set them up with all my beloved pod casts. (Oh, this is so wonderful). A friend informed me, that I should be able to listen to the pod casts via the browser on the internet. YES! Now I know I'm hopelessly addicted to Metro Moment, MacNation and Buzz Out Loud! Really scary. Its time to think about a laptop, or hopefully getting permission to remotely control my own Mac using their machine. I even miss my NetNewsWire news feeds. I can get news, but its not my pre-selected and time tested sources. Yeah, I'm a geek. "without my computer, who am I?"