"If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other." - Carl Schurz

"The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time." - George Sutherland
"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe." - Edmund Burke
Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts

Monday, September 04, 2006

A post while winding down before bed

I'm up way past my bedtime. I'm waiting for my allergy pills to kick in. My herbal tea - a combo of Celestial Seasonings' Tangerine Orange Zinger and Country Peach Passion - is steeping. I'm listening to the new Junior Boys album, So This Is Goodbye, on my iPod. I reckon I can put off going to bed just long enough to post about some recent events in my life.

I started my new job on the 16th. I am loving it, as I was sure I would. I felt outside of my comfort zone at first, as I am receiving very little direction compared to my previous position. However, I am adapting to my new routine and learning quickly. I'm also using my previous experience on the borrowing side of interlibrary loan to streamline the lending process, much to the delight of my new boss. It helps that the student workers in my department are amazing - the oldtimers are very knowledgeable and dependable and even the new arrivals are eager to help. They are really helping me get through this transition period.

I greeted my 29th birthday last week with a mixture of disbelief and trepidation. I know it sounds silly complaining about my youth slipping through my fingers when I'm still in my 20's, but my anxiety stems from the gradual realization that I can't use my age as an excuse for irresponsibility anymore. I still have areas that need a lot of work, money and housekeeping being the most pressing issues. Despite any lingering problems, however, I feel good about what I accomplished while I was 28. I completed my bachelor's degree. I landed a job that requires a B.A. and that will boost my career prospects. I met Michael. I adopted Sugarfoot. While I didn't cross everything off my list, I still achieved some major goals and laid the groundwork for the coming year.

Since Michael's move was scheduled for this weekend, we celebrated my birthday last weekend. He took me out to dinner and got me Season 8 of The Simpsons on DVD. More than anything else, though, I was glad to celebrate my birthday with the man I love.

I bought my new computer on Thursday and immediately got to work on customizing it for my needs. I spent several hours that night uninstalling all the free trial software and assorted crap that weighed the computer down and slowed its startup. Then I started downloading, installing and tranferring licenses for software that I had on the previous computer. Finally I had to back-up all of my music on the hard drive in case iTunes decided to disallow use of my iPod on the new computer. I lost a few tracks in the process but I was able to replace all but three - all from Wasps' Nests by The 6ths - on iTunes or Emusic. Hoodlums may still have the used copy I sold them last year. If not, I can buy it cheap from an Amazon Marketplace seller.

Michael and I spent most of the weekend working on his move. He hired movers to do all the moving but we unpacked. To be fair, Michael did most of the unpacking, but he didn't ask me to do much. I was mostly an extra set of hands for unpacking large things and a catsitter. We were both surprised that it went as smoothly as it did. Nonetheless, it was very exhausting for both of us and incredibly stressful for Michael. He handled it well, though, and avoided taking it out on me. Not that he's the type to do that, but some of my experiences helping boyfriends move haven't been very pleasant. Michael's graceful handling of the move further reinforced his superiority over others I have dated.

That's all for now. Goodnight.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

R.I.P., my computer

Some time yesterday my computer died. Surprisingly even to myself, I'm not freaking out. Intuitively, I feel that this is a blessing and an opportunity. I will start my full-time job next week so I should soon have the means to buy a new computer that will better suit my needs.

The podcast is on indefinite hiatus until I buy a new one computer or, barring that, get the current one repaired. I will still blog regularly when I am on campus and from Michael's place. I am not going to list everything I listen to, since I can't podcast. I will probably write music-related posts periodically though.

The biggest bummer is that I cannot acquire any music. Well, I could, but I only listen to music on my iPod and I currently have no way to transfer new music to it. That, more than any other factor, makes acquiring a new computer a major priority.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

iPod trouble

I did something stupid. I tried to use ephPod to delete tracks from my iPod after copying them to my hard drive. Big mistake. Now the iPod DB is corrupted and only ephPod can read it. iTunes will not recognize the iPod when plugged in and the iPod will not recognize the 13,000+ tracks that are still stored on it. And, yes, I tried using the DB-rebuilding feature in ephPod and it doesn't work too well. It seems to think that there are only 20 subdirectories, rather than 40.

All is not lost, however. The tracks are still there and ephPod still sees them. I have started to transfer all the tracks onto my hard drive and my old 40GB Creative mp3 player. Then I will use iPod Updater to restore factory settings on the iPod and transfer the files back. This should take me a few days, so I don't reckon there will be a podcast this week.

I want to get it done fast, though, for these three reasons in particular:

  • the soundtrack to the Leonard Cohen documentary I'm Your Man, featuring Antony, Nick Cave, Rufus and Martha, Kate and Anna, and some other lovely people.
  • O Yuki Conjugate's new album, The Euphoria of Disobedience, which just became available on iTunes.
  • Frog Eyes' new EP, The Future Is Inter-Disciplinary or Not at All, which I had my hoodlums order for me from Spain.

Here is what I was able to listen to Saturday, Sunday and Monday before this little mishap:

  1. Girl Talk: Night Ripper
  2. O Yuki Conjugate: Equator
  3. The Pipettes: We Are the Pipettes
  4. Metallic Falcons: Desert Doughnuts
  5. The Essex Green: Cannibal Sea
  6. Peeping Tom: Peeping Tom
  7. Centro-Matic: Fort Recovery
  8. Richard Butler: Richard Butler

Friday, July 21, 2006

Slow day

It's an almost unbearably slow day in the office. I have about an hour and a half left and I am bored to death.

I am going to take my GRE in about two weeks. I plan to study a bit each day until then, including writing essays from the sample topics at the GRE website. On two practice tests (quantitative and verbal only) I scored 1330 and 1360. My goal is at least 1450 combined verbal and quantitative and 5-6 on each of the two analytical essays.

I recently became concerned that my iPod was running out of space for music. I realized that many tracks that I had downloaded from Emusic and Bleep were encoded at a sampling rate of more than 200 kbps. I realized that if I could transfer files back to my hard drive, I could convert them into 128 kbps AAC files without a significant decline in sound quality. I had to find software that had the capability of transferring files from iPod to hard drive - iTunes had lost this function with version 4.7. I found and tested ephPod and it worked. Last night I reduced about half a GB by about 140 MB - roughly 28%. I hope that this process will free up at least 3 GB.

I have now successfully killed a few minutes, so I will get back to work.