Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

You, iPhones and the CTA

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You might be wondering why I am writing about iPhones, since I have a BlackBerry. Or about the CTA, since unless every single one of our impressive stable of two- and four-wheeled vehicles is out of service, I rarely take public transportation.

I just want to keep up with the exciting news that now you can supposedly use your iPhone in the subway. Quite a few of my friends on AT&T, with and without iPhones, wish that it was possible to consistently use their phones without dropped connections in their homes and cars, let alone a noisy subway. Priorities!

But since it’s more important to use your iPhone in the subway than in your home, hopefully you’ll still have it when you get off the train. iPhone and electronic gadget thefts in general are apparently on the rise on the CTA:

Beware of iPhone thefts on the CTA
Hold the Phone: iPhone, Gadget Thefts on the Rise

And yes, I am one of those people who would have liked to have an iPhone (still do, really) but did not want to put up with AT&T’s spotty coverage for the “privilege.” Verizon sucks in many other ways, but I can’t fault the coverage in the places I live, work and most frequently travel to. And what’s the point of a smartphone or any cell phone if you can’t get coverage?

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 13 of 31)

Issues, we have technology issues

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The update to WordPress 2.9.1 went fine, as did the updates to several plugins and the pre-update backups to the database and files. So at least something is working well here. Not everything, though.

I’ve been trying out some to-do list/task manager software. BlackBerry Tasks doesn’t sync to anything else. Google Tasks doesn’t sync to my BlackBerry. Remember The Milk syncs to Google Calendar when both RTM and Google Calendar feel like speaking to one another, and that’s apparently not predictable. Is that big fun, or what? I’m thinking about going back to pen and paper. There really is something very soul-satisfying about drawing that heavy line through a completed task.

Another technology issue that came out of left field involves my family and Skype. I would have never in a million years expected most of my family to want to do the video call thing. But after my uncle passed away last month, one of the things my brother and cousin did was to get everyone set up on Skype to be able to stay in touch despite the distance between most of us. I’ve had a Skype account for a while, but I’ve used it only for magazine business, mostly file transfers and text chat. I do not do video. Ever.

To keep in touch with my family, I suppose I can be more flexible on that point. And then it turns out I may have difficulty doing so, since it seems to involve some workarounds to get the Sony VAIO Motion Eye camera to work properly with Skype. That will have to wait until the laptop comes back from the fan replacement. By then I should have mustered up the energy to deal with technology issues.

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 10 of 31)

Digital spring cleaning

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Maybe I shouldn’t call it “spring” cleaning. It’s been snowing since early this morning, temperatures are dropping like a rock, and the wind is blowing snow all over the place. It’s very clearly still winter.

But it feels like the digital version of spring cleaning as I try to get the past years’ data organized and backed up, and archive non-current items. As I mentioned earlier in the week, my Sony VAIO laptop, which is my primary computer, needs to go in for warranty replacement of the intermittently noisy cooling fan. I actually have another full year to have the repair done as Sony has extended the warranty for fan replacement only. I don’t want to let it go that long, but I didn’t want to send it out until we were done with magazine production for this quarter (that would be The Total Rottweiler Magazine, if you haven’t been visiting here long). The magazine went to print on Tuesday, so it’s a convenient time for me to be without this computer for a little while.

Due to a lifetime of employment in print production, the magazine files are already pretty well-organized. My blog and website files, not so much. I have a lot of non-current versions that should be archived and moved off-line. I’m going to try to get that done over the weekend. If life gets in the way, I’ll just do a couple of full backups and send the laptop on for the repair anyway.

Something else I want to work on is an editorial calendar for this blog. ProBlogger Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog last year had a day devoted to the process, and I really think it will help me in keeping a good balance here between Rottweilers, technology and world domination. It will also help me to make sure that I follow up on ongoing news items.

Winter is a good time for stuff like this, so I hope to make some headway while the weather is ugly enough to keep me inside!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 7 of 31)

My car talked to me!

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I’m back home now and wistfully recalling younger days when a six-hour drive was a piece of cake.

So! My car talked to me this morning as I was leaving the motel. Well, not exactly, but it did communicate. I’ve had this particular vehicle, a 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan, for almost a year now. Understand that even though I am pretty high-tech in many ways, when it comes to my vehicles I have been decidedly low-tech. The last vehicle I had before this had manual windows. This is the first vehicle I’ve had with ABS (and may I say it scared me the first time the brakes pulsed in that weird way). I don’t have GPS, although I’m sure many of you think that’s a huge mistake (I do use BlackBerry Maps and MapQuest for BlackBerry when traveling).

Anyway, back to this morning. I have never even seen most of the warning lights on the dashboard. Imagine my horror to see a horseshoe-shaped thing with an exclamation point in the middle of it. I had to look it up in the manual: it was a low tire indicator. It’s not quite high tech enough to tell me which tire, though. None of the tires looked particularly low, but who am I to ignore my car?

This turned into a mini-fiasco as the first two gas stations I went to did not have functioning air pumps. The third one did, and my car was right. The driver’s side front tire was about 5 pounds low, and the others were fine. Aside from the single-digit temperatures and the fact air costs $1.00, all was well. You are probably wondering to yourself how I could not know that air costs $1.00. We have compressors at home and I truly can’t remember the last time my low tire needs were not noticed within reach of our personal compressors.

It is very quiet here without Axel. Freya is somewhat stressed out but she’ll be fine in a day or two once she remembers that when Axel is away, she also gets his share of attention and treats.

Back to work and a normal routine tomorrow. Oh, joy.

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 5 of 31)

Internet everywhere!

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I love that even budget-priced motels now almost all have free or low-cost in-room high-speed wireless internet access. So why am I at a motel tonight, and why am I posting this from my BlackBerry, you ask?

It’s about six hours from my home to Julia’s, and I drove down with Axel and a nice German Shepherd needing a ride today. Now in my younger days, I would have made the return drive right away. In my younger days, I also thought a full day on a motorcycle was a reasonable drive. But with age eroding my night vision, I decided driving back in the morning made more sense.

I made full use of the free internet access by spending a couple of hours working on the magazine. Unfortunately, my VAIO is one of those needing a warranty fan replacement and without my laptop cooler pad, it is getting molten hot.

Thus, tonight’s NaBloPoMo entry via BlackBerry!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 4 of 31)