Month: October 2013

Ok,

Finally done it – instead of hanging around for a refurb model to appear I’ve taken the plunge and spent the cash.

What’s the Shininess ?

It’s a Macbook Air 13.3″ model with the 256GB hard disc. I’m not mentioning the cost (cos it’s enough for me to hope I’ll not be buying any more pooter hardware for 5 years) but I will give a special mention to my darling Snow Queen who pointed me towards the work discount. Works in store too 🙂

The real catalyst is being banned from taking my car into the car park at work again. Yep. Banned from work due to discrimination by post code. I live 2.86 miles away (in a straight line, it’s 4 miles walking) from work, which is just inside a 3 mile exclusion zone. Why am I banned ? Because the Powers That Be have allowed too many people to be squeezed into the site. It’s not just the parking, it’s the desk allocation too. We simply don’t have enough space on the site. So I’m a subject of workplace discrimination.

(This is why I don’t say who I work for, so I can bitch about them when I really need to !)

Anyway – not actually that big a deal, as I have a very valid bus route that I can use instead of the car which :
1 – means I’m not stressing out driving in Bristol traffic (it turns the hair white)
2 – keeps my legs in better condition inside
The drawback – loss of flexibility and it’s £4 a day.

Shinies !!!

I can’t play with it yet. It’s busy transferring data across from my old laptop. I’ve been a bit silly there as I’ve told it to copy all of the downloads folder. I should have deleted a bunch of stuff there before the copy.

After that, I’ll be cracking open iTunes and copying across the old library. All 11,000 tracks and 60+GB of it … That might be tomorrow’s job as :
The migration is currently saying 4 hours 23 minutes to go
I … need … more … sleep … (actually had a good sleep last night but have a lot of catching up to do)
I’m anticipating needing to “downgrade” back to iTunes 10.7 in order to get iTunes DJ back.

Isn’t it funny ? I could have easily slept in the car on the way back from Birmingham on Saturday but when I tried sleep after reaching my bed ? Nope. I ended up rewriting one of our key documents in my head (do I remember what ? Hell no – that’s not the way it works) and adding new scratches on top of the old ones. Slept much better last night.

I’ll let people know about how the migration works when I get to play. Be prepared for a few “Getting used to the Mac” segments of posts ;-). Oh – I’m also going to re-rate that whole library too, which will be curious. How long before I can listen to the whole thing ? MONTHS ! Lol.

Hopefully it’ll finish before I retreat for sleep tonight.

What’s left for tonight ?

I’m going to resist the WoW addiction. Too much of that and it’ll kill my shoulder and my wrist. And my wrist is already suffering enough with the work posture (tried a vertical mouse, nice but it didn’t fix the problem – it’s the angling that causes the damage, trackpads are ok but not big enough at work). I’m in my woolly fingerless gloves already – they’re great, the woolly is thick enough to support the wrist and also keeps it warm.

Lovely. Well recommended, just don’t whatever you do buy ones with the attached pouch. The pouch is no use for storage and ridiculously gets in the way.

I’m watching the Youtube vids instead 🙂 Totalbiscuit’s news roundup at the moment followed by Scott Manley blowing up Kerbals. Yep. Chill out time. No Azeroth time. Please. That game is ridiculously addictive. I do need to log on my old Bashara sometime soon though so she can retire wielding her legendary hammer.

I’ve been mostly enjoying my time back in Warcraft. Sure, the Icecrown questing was boring (it just dragged on far too long) but I raced through Hyjal (two highish level zones) and I’m chuckling through Uldum (land of the eternal cutscene … with pyramids) on I think my 4th time through it. It’s a shame Warcraft is a game of two halves, there’s some awesome content in there that you tend to see Just Once while levelling and then never again. The other half is the repetitive, fiddly, uninteresting raid content at maximum level that turned me off.

Must … avoid … Azeroth … temptation …

3 Hours 26 minutes remaining ! (I’ve not spent that long tapping, it’s just speeding up)

PS I’m going to do some music posts too from the old laptop – a top 40 of what I ended up listening to most.

Had a day out yesterday.

It was the latest in a series of PHO meet ups, this time in Birmingham at the Great Barr Hotel. It’s a chance for people suffering our particular condition to catch up with how we’ve all been doing. And it’s a good bunch to catch up with too.

I won’t mention too many of them (inspiration for codenames and all that !) but it was great to meet them. And our organiser is even more gorgeous in real life than the photo’s suggest. What photo’s don’t capture well is the vital spark a person possesses … let’s just say that if someone had managed to slip her the Red Bull (other energy drinks … may have similar effects) as threatened, the results could have been highly amusing ;-).

Oh – what was amusing … Oh myyyy.

As well as the meal (which scored high marks, I was genuinely sad to finish it), there was a tribute act called Forgery … This is kind of a double act, with a bloke and lady taking turns to do songs from Michael Buble, Beyonce, Robbie Williams and Rihanna. They don’t sing together so not a true double act, just one after the other. Really enjoyed that.

(Although, as happens way too often – way too loud, our poor Rihonce had her voice distorted horribly by the audio and it took some of the gloss off a great voice and performance).

Shall I say that our Rihonce was definitely into a bit of audience participation ? I have to admit, I put a little possibly cruel comment on FB which I need to mention – when she came out, I thought she was one of those girls who you throw cheeseburgers at to get them healthy. Think – tall, very thin, verrrrry long legs. And – as I was about to find out : a very healthy sized bum.

Yep. I was the audience participation.

And I enjoyed every second. Well – after figuring out what was going on. (I can be a bit slow). Oh and I milked it for all I could think of too 🙂

About the size thing – I don’t have a problem with people being overweight. Britain is a land of (relative) plenty, we should have enough to adequately feed ourselves. Although I don’t like it when people are so big that they’re causing themselves health problems. Where I do have a problem is where people seem half starved. Eating disorders are a serious problem, they cause so many issues all coming from a desire to conform with a body image which is unnatural.

Curves are awesome. Bony is not. And the jibes that push girls into starving themselves are the height of cruelty.

Anyway – the cheeseburger comment was a bit cruel on our Rihonce. Yep. Thin – but built on a tall frame which made her look thinner than she actually was. I’ll have that image in my mind for quite some time :-).

Actually – there’s another image I’d like to have retained, it’s from the end of project dinner that we had last year and it’s of the girls in that last project in their party gear. I’m usually good at remembering pictures but that dinner came 1 day after I got my marbles scrambled again by a bump on the head by a cricket ball, so those memories are damaged.

Thoroughly enjoyed it last night and I’ll be back for more at the next one. I didn’t join in with the dancing for a couple of reasons :

I’m hopeless at dancing – my power legs are a curse there. I can dodge and react but getting them to behave with timing ? LOL. It takes too much to get them moving to have any chance of being in sync or time.
And I was suffering on the inside too – My outsides have improved over the last couple of days since the latest doctor visit but my insides are still compromised by my levels being all askew. Basically, if I look too long off to the side or twist too much, there’s a big chance of something going bang and me going OW.
I also have a few too many inhibitions for my liking that I’ll need to dump at some point.

I’m hoping that sorts itself out. Can’t close without mentioning the raffle – I think my prize (the Pendennis Dwagon) was the Most Wanted and he’s gone to a good home. I won a tin of Roses which will keep me going for a little while :-).

Oh – I also have a new nickname that I like and am going to keep. In true Robert Downey Jr film style :

I am Dwagon Man.

I’m torn at the moment.

When I make a decision to do something, I like to dive in head first and execute it. Ok, I may procrastinate a little more and hunt out the best deal but I do like to make the change when it’s time to do so.

The latest is the laptop … (says he writing this post with 7.3lbs, 3.3kg of laptop between knees and tummy – it could be a short post).

I’ve decided what I want to do, it’s the execution that’s going to be frustrating now. I know what laptop I’ll get :

Macbook Air, 13.3″, 256GB drive, latest generation. That’s what I want, it meets the spec I’m interested in and the hard disc is big enough to hold my iTunes library with tonnes of space left over. Not convinced that a 128GB drive would have enough room left after the library (which is now 11169 tracks, 62GB).

The frustration now is how I want to buy it. I.e. spending the minimum possible to get what I want. I have a number of options :

Buy refurbished – this depends on stock and would cost £959.
Yes – that’s a lot of money ! But I target having this puppy for 5 years at least.
Buy different – a Macbook Pro costs more for less capability. Not an option.
Buy from a reseller – they’re cheaper but they’re last generation. Meh.
Use the work discount – cost £1060.
(Refurb wins there)
Go by the Apple Store price – £1129.

You can probably tell that I’d like to go by the refurbished price and guess what – there was one on sale until … Monday night. Why did I hold off before making the decision ? Because I was booked in for a tyre change appointment on Tuesday evening and didn’t want the deliveries to clash.

Ho hum. Procrastination sometimes doesn’t pay.

A Windows laptop is still a possible alternative. However … none of the ones at PC World meet an acceptable spec (either they’re Windows 8 or the screens/keyboard don’t measure up). A potential gamble would be PCSpecialist.com, although that’s a gamble because I’ve never used them before so I have no idea as to their quality. But :

A spec equivalent to the Macbook Air would be a 13.3″ Optimus V :
Intel i5-4200, 8GB RAM (more but Windows needs it), 240GB SSD – £833

What I would buy – 15″ Cosmos II :
IPS* 1080p screen, Intel i5-4200, 8GB, 500B hybrid HD – £761

*If you’re buying a monitor and have a choice, go for an IPS screen. I dunno what the acronym stands for (I’m techie but I read stuff, pick up the key points and forget the acronyms) but IPS screens are the best on the market. And considering that the screen is how you interact with the laptop, it’s the most vital thing out there.

Both of those are with Windows 7. However, you’re still stuck with Microsoft software there and an uncertain keyboard, trackpad and screen. I tried out the Macbook keyboard and my fingers definitely appreciated the feel.

So – I’m torn.

I WANT SHINIES !!!!! NOW !!!! (lol)

But – I don’t actually have to buy it now. I can wait. Which is what I will do. The thing that makes things cost more is rushing into things and being hasty.

Although if you don’t act with enough speed, you can miss out on a good thing. I’ve done that a few times in the past … and I’m not talking about computers 😉 Mind you, I’ve also rushed in and scared people off.

Let’s see … WoW is queueing, this Body of Proof episode is almost done … time to close !

The credit card is going to hate me by the end of the week.

I have two expensive things (technically 3) on the extraordinary shopping list … The first is actually quite mundane. The car needs new front tyres. One disadvantage to having a relatively high performance car is that the bits cost a lot and for the tyres, it’s £100 a corner.

It could be more but I’m avoiding the big name people in favour of Hankook, who score well on the economy, wet driving and noise thingys. Do I believe the economy, wet driving and noise thingys ? Nope – but in the absence of better info, they’re all I have to go on. I’ve never used Hankook before, I’m curious as to how they work out. Hopefully better than Continental, which have been universally useless in all the cars that I’ve owned which have had those inflicted upon them.

Before the next bit – how about me ?

My legs are in far better shape now. They’re actually normalising … I know … that’s taken a lot of time. My arms on the other hand (oops – didn’t mean that pun but it was inevitable) need me to leave them alone more so they can heal. It’s just so easy to damage bits. And I’m not mentioning the two places that I really want to have healing happen on them.

I’ve been warcrafting again. A little too much to be honest. I have a feeling that the swelling in my legs was actually protecting the joints – lol. Warcraft hits me in the wrist and shoulder because I tunnel into it a little too much. That’s not to say I wouldn’t get safe (easier now that you can fly) and have a good natter to someone if messages popped up but if left to my own devices, I’ll easily sink 3-4 hours into it straight. That’s not really healthy and I’ve been using iTunes and dinner times as a marker for breaks. Plus I’m getting better at recognizing the signs of being in the game too long and take breaks.

I think after the initial rush wears off, I’ll get back to normal again but I have sunk an obscene amount of my spare home time into it over the past week. And I’ve a) enjoyed it, b) been glad to be back in the guild (they’re a good bunch) and c) the tunneling has given my fingers something to do which does not involve self damage.

So what’s this thing that’s going to break the credit card if it’s more than the tyres ?

I’m going to make the jump to Macbooks …

Every time I do a blog post on this laptop, I’m reminded about how bad the keyboard has got. I’m continually going back over to retype where random key didn’t get recognied. See what I mean ? That’s acually light for what it tends to miss ;-). But it’s not just the keyboard, it’s been suffering for power too although that could be the Firefox web browser and Flash being horribly inefficient. So it’s time for the laptop to be traded in for something different.

It’ll be a Macbook because I’ve had enough of Microsoft software (it’s been steadily getting more and more hostile) and Windows laptops don’t offer a spec I like at a price I’m prepared to pay. So I’m jumping ship to something that will be very shiny indeed. It’ll be a bit of an effort migrating though :

Screen size – the resolution is similar but I’ll be going from 17″ down to 13.3″. However … it’ll also be about a quarter of the weight. And with me occasionally tapping out a blog post with the laptop on my knees, that’ll be appreciated.
Itunes – I might be able to copy over my library and keep the data but to be honest, I’m quite tempted to reset it all anyway. Of course it’ll take me literally 6 months to re-rate all the music again but there we go :-). I wonder how long it would be before I’d start seeing repeat tracks.
Digiguide – is the one piece of Windows software that I use that I would miss from the laptop. But to be honest, it’s a tv guide application and there are ways around it being gone.
Interface – my fingers dance on the keyboard. Tis nice.

But the rest of it – Skype (which I rarely use now since Microsoft forced us off the perfectly good Messenger), web browsing, email is done equally good or better on the Mac. And for the stuff that doesn’t play nicely with Mac, I have my desktop. I’m not likely to put many games on the Macbook, gaming on a laptop is somewhat cruel for the laptop.

The one I’ll get will be a 13.3″ Macbook Air with a 256 GB hard disc. I’ll be going for a refurb model for £££ off the price. It’s still a lot of money but I’m hoping that it’ll last long enough to wear out in … a longer time than this laptop at least (almost 4 years)

We shall see !

I’m almost done with catchup on the Youtube videos so it’s time to join that Draenor Warcraft queue again …

I’ve reactivated the Warcraft …

I dunno. I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t going to go back in and the only thing that’s really changed that is the price of the expansion going down. It is still one of the best games out there though, from a pure gameplay point of view. There’s an immense amount of content in there.

One sad thing is that they’ve dumbed it down so much and sped up the progression so much that individual characters are almost forced to skip parts of the content because they race past its relevance so quickly. When that happens, the character gets minimal experience and there’s no challenge. You can have multiple characters, so that’s not as big an issue as it could be.

Yep. Back in Warcraft. It’s partly medicinal, for my skin problem (honest – it just happens to work out that way). A lot of the cause for my skin issues is self inflicted. Idle hands can’t resist scratching and making it worse. Warcraft gets me in a tightly focused mode where I can zone out and zone in to the game. So instead of my fingers attacking my arms and leg, they’re tapping the keys.

There’s a couple of other changes I’ve made too to manage the condition and it’s having a good positive effect. It’s a hell of a lot better than it was a few weeks ago.

It’s still a long way from healed but it’s getting there. My legs are definitely less angry with me although it’s not all done yet. It’s something I’m going to need to continually work on. I’m also hoping it doesn’t come back now that I’ve finished the latest round of drugs.

It has had an impact though. I think it’s fairly well trashed this laptop. The keyboard is getting less and less responsive. The next machine is going to be a Macbook Air for a number of reasons :

Windows laptops come with Windows 8 (ok, I could get one from Novatech or PCSpecialist with Windows 7 but that’s hassle) and Windows 8 is an abomination
All Microsoft software lately seems to be an abomination actually, it’s only through mass protest that the Xbox One had all its u-turns on spec. I think someone told Microsoft that if they’d followed through on the original plan, the market share would have been something like 10 to 1 in favour of the Playstation 4.
Windows laptops don’t have acceptable specs. They’re either last generation processors (or older!) and it cost £600 to get a 17″ with a decent screen. The prices of Windows laptops have steadily gone up, making them less economic to acquire.

Ok – that’s the anti-Microsoft … I’ve also eliminated Linux as a choice because it doesn’t allow support (it can be done but I’d expect problems) for iTunes and the hardware support would be patchy at best. I’d get a Macbook Air 13.3″ with a 256GB hard disc and it has a number of advantages :

The keyboard and trackpad felt lush when I tried tapping out a sentence on one. I suffer from wrist problems too, so when it’s harder to type, it literally hurts.
The Macbook Air has the latest generation Intel cpu, which is a serious amount of power.
It has a solid state device drive – it’s tough to say why these are good but you would notice the difference
Proper hardware support – ok it may be locked down but it has a development team looking out for the bugs, the alternative is Linux which can only be described as anarchic with its development
Unix based so (allegedly – I don’t believe the claim here) no virus or malware trouble
Proper legacy operating system support – Microsoft don’t want you to have this, Apple make it easy

Am I going to buy one now ? I have to admit, since I noticed an evening delivery option it’s got a lot more tempting. That means I could abuse the flexi a little, get home from work early and in time for the delivery. Daytime deliveries are far more awkward to manage.

However. The golden rule of buying anything is – don’t rush into it. I could get a refurb Macbook for 15% off but I get the feeling there may be more offers around the corner …

We shall see ! It’ll definitely feel weird transferring over from Windows to Mac but to be honest, Microsoft only have themselves to blame for an inevitable loss in market share as people like me migrate to other platforms (Mac, PS4, Linux) due to the Microsoft offerings being hostile to the people who are forced to buy them through a lack of competition.