Chaos Attraction

New Gadget Fun

2010-01-12, 8:38 a.m.

Hey, look, an entry when it's not Holidailies!

So, this weekend I didn't have a whole lot scheduled (other than an all-night mandatory meeting/late Yule party Sunday), so I figured okay, this is when I'm forcing myself to set up the new laptop and new iTouch.

You'd think I'd be hopping right on the stick to do that, but man, it's HARD setting up a new brain for yourself, you know? Hard, tiring stuff. I didn't actually get started until about Saturday night because I had to e-mail Jess to ask how to set up the Internet on the new laptop because she configured the browser. I realized that I'm going to have to switch virus protection software (and gee, I just paid up right before the old Windows died), but found freebie virus protection for Windows 7, so that was awesome. I am definitely liking Windows 7 so far, and am grateful to have missed the Vista years.

During all of this, I was ah...watching Hulu videos on my now-Linux laptop. Yup, that's geeky.

And after installing virus software and Firefox again, I moved on to the iTouch Sunday morning. And rediscovering the iTunes store, which I have pretty much been unable to use due to full computer for most of the last two years now. ("Oh, huh, I bought three shows and two songs? Including My Big Redneck Wedding?") I immediately downloaded fifty free apps, some of which are awesome/useful and some of which are not so much.

But I didn't install yet, because I wanted to put some music back on the new machine. And THAT'S where the fun train kinda slowed down.

Because I'd filled up the old laptop so much, I decided I was only going to put the songs I listen to more often onto the new one. I hand moved things into the library. And uh... figured out a few hours later that it was just playing songs off the spare drive, they weren't saved onto the laptop. Ironically, that was something I'd wanted to do on my old laptop, but got told that would have me running the risk of fucking up iTunes. Um....

But now Windows 7 has some kind of super-install thing, so when I tried to transfer the music files, it transferred everything...including my 29,000 photos. Wouldn't download one without the other. And as for that picture number, I'm only rounding that off by a little. And I was all, "Oh CRAP...well, I'll just delete them afterwards if I have to."

Happily, hours later when the download stopped, I'd only filled up maybe a sixth of the new computer space. WHEW.

But then I had to hand delete all the "old" songs I was running off the spare drive, get iTunes to find what library to pull from, redo playlists... I JUST got this done right before having to go to the meeting. Very, very tedious.

Oh, and did I mention that thanks to Jess setting up the wireless router with uber-security, I have to type in a very long, complicated, HOLY SHIT THIS IS LONG AND COMPLICATED, password EVERY time I want to use the iTouch online in my own place? Apparently it won't save this from use to use either. GAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

But the apps are fun, and since I haven't downloaded new songs onto my usual iPod in ages (haven't been able to since the laptop 2 machines ago died), it was fun to get to listen to something else for a change. I'm still getting used to the thing. I'm tempted to write reviews of apps, but so far have resisted. Viewing comic books on this thing is SO awesome and actually feasible (easier than web pages). I dearly wish someone would put the Buffy season 8 comics on there because the comic book store is kind of out of my usual way and I haven't caught up with that in ages. I have also found various short attention span games (slingshot cows! bowling! pinball! tons of solitaire!) that are amusing me no end. And happily I have access to my eReader books again, even the ones I already bought before. That's a relief.

So basically, this is all I've done at home for the last three days is look for apps and download. Fun times!


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