by Amy Stinson | Nov 24, 2008 | Musings
I really do get the concept of situational friends. Really, I do. Some friends come about through shared experiences, bonding-by-drama, etc. When that time is over, you go on about your business. They aren’t the people you pick up the phone and ask out to lunch or offer to watch their dog while they go on vacation. What I don’t get is when situational “friends” don’t observe the commonest of courtesy, such as acknowledging you’re alive outside of the situation. It’s one thing to avoid eye contact and make every effort not to touch someone you don’t know, but to do that to someone you do know and have have shared relatively intimate moments with is just – weird. (more…)
by Amy Stinson | Oct 27, 2008 | Musings
I’ve spent the better part of the evening trying to figure out why this website had dropped in the rankings on Google for my name keyword, and lo and behold my site was back in first place. Hallelujah!! It was kind of embarrassing since I have been using organic SEO for about 10 years.
by Amy Stinson | Oct 27, 2008 | Musings
I have been (somewhat) lusting for a graphics tablet for a few years. My sister had an unused one that I acquired when she died, but it didn’t have any supported drivers for XP. It was not fun to use. As much as I like the brand name stuff, Wacam was simply beyond my budget.
Aldi advertised a 6 x 10 graphics tablet for $49.99 in its Sunday flier. $50 is a pretty cheap date when it comes to graphics tablets. The main thing I was concerned about is that it wouldn’t behave well in Photoshop (kind of like how a cheap dance pad I got from Kraft behaved in DDR) and it would simply be another mouse.
I’m pleasantly surprised. It is working great in One Note and it works great in Photoshop (so far). I’m excited about exploring the possibilities.
by Amy Stinson | Oct 25, 2008 | Musings, Reasoned Opinion
I bought my HP zd8000 laptop back in August 2005 after my old laptop started misbehaving. This zd8000 has been a pretty good laptop, other than a heat problem and the lint problem I wrote about earlier – well except for the battery. I’m now on my 4th battery and it looks like I’m going to be heading to “batteries R us” and getting yet another replacement. Yesterday my laptop suddenly switched off and the battery hasn’t charged since, nor does the computer think there’s one in it.
This is more than a bit annoying. Right now, the only way I can type this article is by removing the battery. Otherwise, the keyboard is unresponsive. Not a big deal unless I actually want to type something like my password. The other problem is that the AC adapter has a weird connection into the computer that works its way loose. So there’s always the “will the laptop become unplugged and switch off without warning” dilemma. That’s always fun – not!! The only good thing about the battery being gone is the fact that the temperature on the wrist rest becomes about 20° cooler.
The heat problems are not trivial. I used to use the laptop on my lap. I rested the laptop on my legs until my legs became so discolored that I couldn’t wear shorts. I think my legs were being cooked by the laptop. I finally bought a chiller and put the whole thing on a lap desk. I got one big enough to allow me to add a mouse because the right button on the touchpad got kind of funky about a year ago, so rather than respond with a touch, it requires more of a massage to do right mouse things. Replacing the touchpad is a major overhaul and it’s not a part you can get from HP. You have to find one from a cannibalized system.
I guess since the laptop is 3 years old, it’s lived its useful life. It has become a friend. It saw me through school. I’ve added memory, a larger hard drive, and the 3 batteries. It has been to Egypt and Israel. Overall, it’s been a a decent machine, but it’s time for a new one.
by Amy Stinson | Oct 20, 2008 | Reasoned Opinion
For years I have been at the top of the rankings in the Google search engines using the keyword “Amy Stinson”. Well, that all changed when I made a changed to the rewrite engine, which ironically is supposed to help SEO, to a more “search engine friendly” format. I dropped to #11. Now I’m going to have to figure out how to claw my way back to the top.
Bummer, man.
