I’m lying on my bed in my own bedroom with my feet up, Squeak lying beside me on the bed, and TJ sitting on the bedside table, both conveniently located for Daddy to pet them. Which Daddy is happily doing; I missed them too. Meanwhile Bubonicon 41 Author Guest of Honor Michael Cassutt is on The Universe on the German Bomber Channel (in this case, the History Channel.) I already got unpacked, which comes as something of a pleasant surprise.
I am a tired, tired creature.
Traveling always wears me out, even though I’m not generally doing much. I can’t say I did nothing at all: made good progress on the final draft of the action/adventure book and am nearing completion.
Thanks to everybody at Archon and the Archon Masquerade crew for another great time. Thanks to Mike and Karla Weaver for putting me up before and after the con, Joan-Marie Knappenberger and John Novak for shuttling me around, and Jim White and Cindy “Farmer” Payant for letting me print boarding passes and giving me a garden tour.
Big thank you to Joe for looking after the house and critters, and Steve and Kathy Kubica for watering the square foot garden and driving me to and from the airport.
And thanks to all the old friends I got to see at Archon for being part of my life.
Getting maudlin here … time to move on … on other fronts, the EEE received, as Steve pointed out at dinner tonight, its first extended test doing what I primarily got it to do. And it passed with flying colors. It is most successfully small and handy. It was a lot easier to fit into the backpack and noticeably lighter than any notebook computer I’ve had. The small screen is fine, only becoming an issue when I go back to the Toshiba and think, “Wow, what a giant screen this is.” There are some tricks with the keyboard, owing to compressed controls rather than key size, which doesn’t feel hugely less than a regular keyboard.
One thing I have got to fix soon is the EEE’s tendency to have the cursor click on anything it lingers over for any length of time.
It was good to go. It was good to come back. I’ve much to do.
Vic… As always, it was and is a pleasure to sit with you, albeit it is usually too short a time. Thanks again for taking the time and the great effort.
Cheers,
-Jim
The pleasure’s mine.
Good to see you here, Jim. Hope you hang around.
Re: “the EEE’s tendency to have the cursor click on anything it lingers over for any length of time.”
Have you tried a plug-in (USB connector) mouse? Might not make any difference in your case, but it might be worth a try. I’m using an EEE with add-on mouse (with retractable cord), as well as standard keyboard (both USB). The keyboard would probably be a detraction to with the portability of the EEE, but the mouse wouldn’t be that difficult to fit into your kit.
- M. \”/
That’s a sound suggestion; thanks.
Indeed I’ve tried to find a suitable trackball – I don’t like mice, preferring thumbball devices. I found one that seems pretty portable but didn’t feel like dropping another $30 right now with finances a tad tight. In the past I’ve used really handy little micro-thumbballs from Ffellowes, but they’re poorly made, not durable, and now don’t seem available at anything but collector’s prices.
There’s some kind of software that came with the EEE that allowed me to turn off the finger-gesture zoom feature that was uncontrollably zooming my screen in and out. Need to track that down again (it’s not intuitive to find) and see if I can mitigate the problem that way. The Device Manager settings I’ve monkeyed with don’t seem to help a bit.
I’ve never tried a trackball. I’d probably either really like it or really hate it. The mini-mouse (from Big Lots) I’m using cost something like $8 – a tad over the $5 I was shooting for when I decided the touchpad was WAY too much trouble, but close enough that solving the problem could take precedence over staying within budget.
I recall that uncontrollable zoom problem. Plugging in the mini-mouse made it go away.
- M. \”/