New Year, new laptop...

[byslantedlight]

I did it - I went out and bought a new laptop today, and the only thing I'm not keen on about it so far (apart from Windows 7 *sighs*) is that the up-down-sideways keys are the teeniest ones on the keyboard, and it's going to take some practice until I stop missing them... Oh, and they always take away programmes that you've just got used to using, too... It's very shiny though, and long (as they mostly seem to be these days), and... and I was a very good girl, and did my research, and bought a Which Laptop Shall I Buy type mag to read over coffee this morning, and then I went around shops and I read and I fiddled and I tapped at keyboards, and I compared specs and compared them with what it'd said in the mag, and... I bought another Sony Vaio. *g* It was in my price range, it had pretty much all the specs I'd wanted, and the keyboard felt good to type on. And the touchpad is in the middle of it. Though the teeny weeny need-to-reach-for-them up-down-sideways keys are a bit of a bugger, I'll grant you... Anyway - I've spent the best part of the day transferring my security and stuff over, and it's beginning to feel a bit more like home now - though I'm still sad for my old Vaio, sleeping the sleep of the cannot-turn-on-any-more...

Now I get to catch up on all the stuff I've fallen hugely behind on - eep! And to wonder about things for 2012, and Pros in 2012, and...oh, stuff, as you do at this time of year. There's lots of Pros-y stuff I should be getting on with - palelyloitering (if I can find a Dreamweaver equivalent to use), and lots of Prosfic I haven't read yet, and wondering whether to carry on with discoveredinalj after the Christmas challenge, and/or my own writings, and/or... oh, you know. Stuff... And there's non-Pros stuff, of course...

...and by the time I've faffed around more with getting things into order on this laptop (have I mentioned the lovely keypad, by the way? *g*), it's time for bed! So here instead of my potential rambling, is the solstice sunset...


And for now, goodnight... until work again tomorrow morning - yuck! I'd much rather stay at home and organise my new laptop... *g*

Oh and I nearly forgot - I liked Sherlock very much, last night, I think they did a great job! Anyone else see it?

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I managed to save my files from the old laptop, it's just that some programmes will need to be re-downloaded, and they always make changes to them! My copy of DreamWeaver was a naughty copy though, and actually really old as well. It needs updating just for usability, but the actual software is far too expensive for someone running a non-business website, so... hmmn!

I'm missing the straighten facility on Picasa (which was all I used it for, but it was really useful!), and I wish they'd not got rid of the facility to edit (and even rename) via the Windows photo viewer... I might have to change my default to the Office viewer, which I stopped using when it got rid of the edit capacity, but it seems to be back now... *head spins*

Pros and cons of continuing discoveredinalj - it's just that, as I was saying up above, participation in the challenges has been way down over the last couple of years, and since we (just me, now!) spend alot of time designing the challenges if no one's playing then it's rather a waste of that time... There's been a couple of challenges now where no one's responded at all, which is rather discouraging. There are now three Pros comms offering challenges, and although that's all very well in theory, in practice it means that participation is going to be more thinly spread. Many people writing Pros seem to concentrate only, or largely, on writing a single Big Bang story, and others seem happy with a single word being thrown at them elsewhere... On the other hand, there was also Real Life that's stopped some people writing in general in 2011, and as I've been discouraged I've perhaps not put in the effort with Dialj in general, so maybe I should post a challenge after Christmas Tree and see what the response is like to that - judge it from there...

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about the propensity of graphics progs to change for no apparent purpose/benefit to anyone! I use a pirate copy of Fireworks plus Picnik (free but you can pay for extra features). I would be devastated if I lost Fireworks but a fellow iconmaker who also does some great artwork recommends Gimp - also free and I have no idea about it but it might be worth a look?

And yes, 'straighten' is a useful thing which I get on Fireworks.

Re dialj. Maybe consider fewer challenges? Perhaps just one or two a year? It does have a unique place - there are trivial/ephemeral challenges like 'caption this' etc. and there are weighty things like the BB but dialj falls between and is also a great place to 'socialise'.

I've always followed it but have only recently dipped my toes into the challenge of posting!! I used to be scared of challenges with all the rules and regulations... Maybe because my first LJ experiences were in role-play comms which are often very strict and quite bewildering. I know I've absolutely loved this latest challenge and finding something exciting every day has enriched Christmas considerably, even if I haven't had time to read all the longer fics yet. I can imagine that it's a huge amount of work but I, for one, am very grateful.

Also, is there any way somebody (e.g. me) could share the burden? I have the time and the interest but am sometimes constrained by lack of internet. We think we have beaten Portuguese Telecom into submission but who knows what 2012 will bring?!

Of course, you increased your workload with the drabble challenge and the Reading Room Advent calendar but those were great, too. Your challenges make Pros a fun place to be - it isn't just fics/vids/icons, like some fandoms and it's a way of making good friends.

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

"Maybe consider fewer challenges? Perhaps just one or two a year?"

I quite liked the time-scale, though: longer than the week-long ones, but short enough to remind me to get my skates on and do something. Which I signally failed to do for the Reporter's Notebook one, I admit. (But I tried! - I have a couple of silly exchanges which will doubtless surface in something else, at least.) And when you have really really long times, I feel that I ought to produce something of some length, as with the minimum word count for the Big Bang.

Also, I really liked the idea that someone (slantedlight) was taking them all and putting them together into little e-zines and making them beautiful. I am still wishing I had saved my druggy story for the Christmas one, just in case she does that again! And I was thinking "next year..." and now there may not be one. Woe.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oops, I forgot to address Moth's suggestion of fewer challenges a year - hopefully she'll get notification of this comment too!

I think Dialj will continue along the same lines it's been running. We originally planned on a challenge every month/six weeks or so, but with total flexibility around that, so that we've had weekend challenges, and much longer challenges too. It all depends on how we feel about a particular idea at the time! I'd be reluctant to change that, because there's now another challenge that's just once a year, and it'd also mess with the way we originally started by playing with the "seasonal" challenge idea - though it was never meant to be limited to just special occasions, that was just something to hang our hats on...

Also, I see no reason why there wouldn't be a Christmas-y Dialj next year, at the very least! But as I said above, and to Moth, I was perhaps a bit hasty saying that participation was so very badly down - it wasn't nearly as bad last year as I felt it was the year before, partly due to lovely new people like yourself joining in to replace those who've left us...

I really must get on with those ezines, too... *g*

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Well, our enthusiasm seems to be having some kind of effect - *crosses fingers*.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh I love Gimp, and that's on my list to re-download! I can straighten pics through it too, but like Photoshop it's a monster to start up each time, and Picasa was so much quicker. I may just download Picasa myself, as I see that it is actually free - even though I don't use it for anything except the straightening! *g*

Dialj - I might have to take back what I was saying about it, to some extent. It has been affected by the other challenges etc, no doubt about it, but having finally gone through and tagged and sorted out the User Page index for 2011, there was alot more participation than I was remembering - just fewer challenges! So it may just have been my general malaise over last year making me think sadly about it... *g*

That said, if you'd like to help out, that'd be fab - its so much more fun to work with other people with the challenges, and I really miss Josey at Dialj (quite apart from anywhere else!) We'd chat and work out the challenges together, and then she'd do gorgeous visuals, and I'd do the words-y bit, usually... Of course it helped that we thought similarly about alot of things (including wanting it all to be right!), and that she was a gorgeous genius... *g*

I'm thinking about what the next challenge could be right now (yes, at the same time as wondering whether I should do one at all *g*) if you want to drop me a line... *g*

And thank you for your kind words - Pros is a fun place to be, isn't it! I've made some lovely friends here, and its completely spilled into my "real life" - I now have very high expectations of a fandom! *g*

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Will email soon - not today because I have to get ready for a hospital appointment and then we are having visitors. But I won't forget!