Tuesday, June 05, 2007

I've split

So, where have I been this last week, you might ask? (Or not ;)

In short, I've been here in my usual haunts, but largely staying offline again. More computer problems came up, and I went back into quarantine mode.

I went from quarantine mode into split mode. This computer I'm using for email and anything that requires an internet connection. But I now have an old laptop, utterly unconnected to anything else, that I use for pretty much everything else.

I feel a bit extravagant, having two computers, even though the laptop is on the order of a hand-me-down, costing us no more than minor refurbishing. But, oh, it's nice having a computer that's not only exposed to fewer hazards, but is equipped with fewer distractions. Not that I'm not a fairly disciplined person, you know, but... it's easier to be disciplined if you reduce the temptations, of course. (Which is why I'm banning games on the laptop, by the way. Once I get started on Spider Solitaire...)

Speaking of computers, my husband heard recently from a business acquaintance who has been traveling in Latin America. This man took his laptop along for the trip, and said he was amazed at how many places have wi-fi down there. The story I got is that he says that even in a village that had no road to it, they had a wi-fi tower that worked, and were quite proud of it. (Closed circuit for the gentleman in question: if by any chance you'd like to flesh out this story, feel free to drop my husband an email, or leave a comment here, or whatever. I think it's a kick, not to mention interesting, but I wasn't sure how much of what I heard I should share without permission.)

P.S. I was warned that having to go back and forth between two different keyboard set-ups during the course of a day tended to drive some people nuts. But so far I like it. For one thing, it gives my back and arms and hands and neck a bit of a break, changing from one angle to the other. I do have to search my keyboard to find a few control keys now, since they're in different places on the two machines, but that extra step I don't find too bothersome at all. Of course, to be fair, the novelty hasn't worn off yet... Of course, to be really, really fair, I should probably mention that I never seem to remember where most of the control or number keys are on a keyboard, even when I'm only using one machine. The alphabet, shift, space, tab, and most of the punctuation keys I could probably do in my sleep, but the others require a peek. :)

P.P. S. Is anybody else having trouble with spacing when using Blogger? Every once in a while, I'm suddenly getting extra lines between paragraphs. Very strange. (And a bit tedious to fix.) I guess I'm wondering if this is a Blogger problem, a glitch in this particular template, or if it's another specific-to-this-computer problem we haven't rooted out yet?

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