Laptop is (nearly) dead again. Arrrrrrrgh.
Let the repair adventures continue…
Also: I am sick.
Also: Go play with this. Ultimately, it is advertising, but it’s fun advertising. It made me less angry for a minute.
Also: This blog actually comes up when you search for various variations on the phrase “Toshiba Tecra M4 repair problem” in Google. I find this extremely entertaining.
So it’s been a few days and it seems that Vista and I are apparently getting along just fine. I also snagged myself a copy of the Office 2007 Trial and have been using OneNote ‘07 for all my stuff, and I have to say, it’s really good. Good like, “I’d pay for this.” It’s a big step up in the world from 2003. Very, very nice. I can’t really say whether I like or hate Vista yet, it’s nice, but it’s…special. There are a lot of really handy things that make my tablet ultimately much more useful than it was with XP, which is great, but at the same time the Mac geek in me is crying. So, so many things were clearly “borrowed” from OSX, and it’s kind of annoying. But on the other hand, I really prefer using OSX and the similarity is kind of nice. “Comfortable.” I’m really pleased with the built-in tablet capabilities, it really seems like it was designed with this kind of computer in mind. Though I don’t know if I could stand using it on a desktop. Maybe? Maybe not. I don’t know yet. One thing that is already driving me nuts is the constant popping-up of bubbles with “helpful hints” and “suggestions”. Cease, I say, Vista! Cease your bubbling!!
I’ve been trying to keep all my school stuff better organized than last semester, and so far I’ve been using OneNote to do so. It’s been working out really well. A lot of my classes use texts in PDF format as class readings instead of textbooks, which is a nice changing from buying more books. My architecture class has no book at all – all of the course texts are downloadable PDFs, which is really excellent. I’ve imported them into OneNote and can mark them up as I please, guilt-free. (I have written in textbooks prior to this, but it always feels so wrong. I don’t know. It seems like if I’m spending $50+ on a book, I shouldn’t really be writing in it, even if it does help with other work.) It’s especially nice to have them right among my regular class notes, so I can flip back and forth without having to shuffle a hundred papers and books. And not having to carry around various notebooks and folders has been really, really nice.
So far my classes have been decent. Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be horrible, I can tell already. I have a class that’s all about Flash, a class and an independent study with my favorite teacher from last semester where I get to design lots of stuff, and a programming class. I get to learn Java. I know nothing about Java. This should be cool. Aaand architecture. I’m not sure what to make of it, really, but it seems like it should be easy enough. Skimming over the readings (in OneNote! 
) looks like a lot of it is very, very basic design and/or art-related stuff which I learned about in foundations, so I’m hoping that keeps up and it’s all easy-like.
I have to say that one of the best things I’ve gained from transferring to UB is that I feel like I’ve learned how to talk about art beyond technical details and processes. I know how things are made, but I also understand why, and that is kind of a cool feeling.
Tomorrow? Java. Let’s go learn us some Java.
Now? Sleeeeeep.
Apparently another semester is now upon us.
When did that happen, and who forgot to tell me?
Every year it feels like Christmas break gets shorter and shorter, though in reality they’re all about the same. I’m not sure whether to attribute this to having a job I go to every day, the fact that this has been my third winter-y break, or some other mystery factor, but regardless; it certainly didn’t seem long enough for my taste.
At any rate, today was the first day of Spring 2007 at UB. Hooray! Well, it should have been hooray. Instead it was a lot of frustration and “oh no, not again.” I only had one class today, a lab at that, which didn’t appear to meet at all, but of course that was by the time I got there. I was up early, had packed my stuff the night before, and was all set to start. I got dressed, got my coat, got my stuff together, got in the car, and headed out. Briefly. The car overheated, I pulled over, and many an adventure was had in getting it to somewhere safe, and getting myself a ride to school. All was well in the end (thanks, Mom) and although I missed my class (if said class even met at all,) I did, in fact, make it to work well ahead of time.
What I am dreading is tomorrow. Mondays and Wednesdays shall henceforth be known as…well…The Days That Shall Not Be Named. I think it’s most appropriate. These Most Horrible Days this semester are 12 hours long for me – running from 8:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night. Ugh. Classes are stacked up mostly back to back with a slight break from 3-7 pm (now mostly occupied by a shift at work) with very little in the way of breaks between them. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to figure out lunch yet, but considering my “pre-lunchtime” class is a CSE lecture, I’m hoping it’ll either end slightly early most days (as in most other lecture classes of this sort I’ve had) or I’ll be able to sneak out five minutes early so I can have some time to grab something and eat it in the 25 minutes that follow before my next class. Ugh.
At any rate, I’m not looking forward to it. At all. If there’s one thing I really hate, it’s driving home, alone, in the dark, every day. Which I will be doing every day (excepting Thursdays!) for the next 15 weeks, or until it starts to get dark later, whichever comes first.
I was trying to remember anything about how I motivated myself to get through high school – because high school was pretty miserable – and it was kind of depressing to remember that there wasn’t a lot. One thing I did recall doing back then was to go through my little assignment planner notebook and note in the corners of the pages how many days or weeks or months were left. So I decided to give this another try, and while it seems kind of silly, it actually does have a purpose. I went through my Official Fancy UB Planner and marked off all 15 weeks, so I’ll know at any given point where I am in the semester. I remember last semester always trying to remember what week it was, less for wishing for the end of the semester and more for trying to remember when projects were due. So now I’ve killed two birds with one stone – I’ll know how much time I have left, and I’ll know when things are due. Yay for strange organization?
On Monday (there were no classes, so this Monday doesn’t count and can still be referred to by its proper name) I reformatted my laptop in preparation for school, because there’s nothing quite so nice as having a completely fresh install to work from. Except I apparently was having some kind of temporary fit of insanity or curiosity, and installed the Windows Vista Beta 2 I’ve had lying around a while instead of XP Tablet. Initially, I planned to install, play around with the tablet features I hadn’t tried when I previously installed it on my desktop over the summer, and then install XP again over it.
Well. Vista says otherwise.
I’m apparently having some difficulty in booting from the CD-ROM, so my XP CD can’t do it’s thing, and running it from within Vista is entirely useless, as you can’t “downgrade” an operating system that way. I could take the hard drive out and format it with my desktop, but that’s a lot of work that I don’t feel like doing right now. So until I de-lazify, or bother reading up on how to do it without removing the hard drive, I’m doing an experiment. Well, two experiments, really.
Experiment 1: Vista Beta + School?
This is probably a horrible idea in its own right, mainly because this version of the operating system really is beta software. For anyone not in the know, that basically means it’s unfinished, and I’m the tester. I’ve thought this through, and after becoming a backup fanatic at the end of last semester, this really shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Essentially, the idea behind this experiment is to see how Vista positively (or negatively?) influences my day-to-day schoolwork. I realize I’m sounding like a Microsoft commercial here, but stick with me. This could be interesting. I plan to take screenshots. Lots of them.
This all ties in with my second experiment,
Experiment 2: The Paperless Experiment
I got the idea for this experiment after reading through the posts about a similar challenge on The Student Tablet PC, and it really seemed like an interesting and useful idea. After all, I paid all this money for this computer, why not use it for everything it was built for?
Goals of the experiment:
To see how little paper documentation I can get away with carrying around. While I’ll have to have a folder to stick paper class handouts in, I intend to scan them later and keep them with the rest of my notes in OneNote. This will be a challenge, being in an art major, because there are a lot of printouts required for class assignments, which I’ll make an exception for, but other than that – I’m going to try and do this without carrying around a notebook where possible. This will (in theory) save me from losing or ruining a lot of important things, as well as be more organized. I also won’t have as much weight to carry around all day, which would be extremely nice. I tried going half-paperless last semester, and it worked surprisingly well. In fact, I feel it would have worked better if I had stuck more to the computer rather than juggling between paper notes and digital notes. Anyway, we shall see.
At this point? I don’t have much else to say. I’m going to consider tomorrow Day One of both experiments, and see where this all goes.
Hopefully the long day won’t be quite so horrible as i’m anticipating. D:
I can’t sleep, so I think I’ll write something instead.
Well. First off, happy 2007. My new year’s was pretty uneventful, and not at all the best one I’ve ever had. I’m hoping this is not some kind of “sign” for the rest of the year or something. Not like I really believe in that, anyway. Best not to discuss, I suppose.
So in the past couple of days I was having this discussion with my mom about how stupid New Year’s Resolutions are. Does anyone really keep them? And are they ever anything worth resolving to do anyway? Scientific data (read: me asking myself) proves nine times out of ten, this is not the case. I read a lot of random blogs, and I can’t remember exactly where it was now that I’m thinking about it, but I remember reading someone’s take on the idea, and they said that rather than a resolution, people ought to come up with a New Year’s Idiom, or New Year’s Slogan. This is not necessarily a bad idea. Not sure if this idea could work for me, but in trying to come up with some, I’d have to say mine might be “Do Not Sink,” or something equally scoldingly motivational for myself. Or something.
Personally, I’m most partial to the idea of having a New Year’s Goal. Something specific. Actually, I’m planning to write out a List For 2007 of all the things I’d like to accomplish, and then I can cross them off as I do them. Crossing things off lists is satisfying.
I’m not tired at all, but at this point I’ve run out of things to write about. Perhaps I should try and take a hint from the snoring kitten on my lap and curl up in a ball and purr until I fall asleep. Well, maybe without the purring.