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desperanceI am, as you know, the most peaceable and placid of souls: but aaargh. Aaargh, I say.
I am supposed to be proofing an anthology of stories by Book View Cafe members, to celebrate our upcoming fifth anniversary. But m'wife said that I didn't have to do that all day, she said I could work on Kipling on Mars too: so first thing, I turned on the Laptop of Utterable Delights. At which point Windows merrily updated itself, and suddenly I no longer had control of the screen's brightness; it was set unusably dim, and nothing would change it.
Aaargh, I may have said.
But! I remembered that it was Thursday 17th October, which as all good penguins know is the release date for the latest Ubuntu, 13.10. Which will certainly run on the Laptop of Utterable Delights (I've been testing various betas over the last weeks, so I know). So I thought, okay, pffft! to Windows and Ubuntu here I come.
But! This first iteration of the installation process utterly failed to recognise my extant Windows installation, and offered only to wipe everything and just install Ubuntu. Which, y'know: I've always had a dual-boot system, I'm a great believer in fallback positions. Belt and braces and excellent tailoring too, so the trousers will in fact hold themselves up sans aids of any sort.
So I aborted that, and aaargh. I may have mentioned?
But! So happens, it transpires, that Thursday 17th October is also the release date for Windows 8.1, which is a free download for anyone with Windows 8 installed - so what the hell, quoth I. And went to the Windows Store and pressed the button, and the machine churred away for a while and asked me various impertinent questions, and now I have a clean new installation and yay, no problems with the brightness of the screen.
Tho' I still need to figure out how to get Ubuntu on there, side by side and playing nicely.
In the meantime, if you've been thinking "it's been a while since Chaz posted, I hope he's okay" - well, you're right, of course. It has been a while. Maybe it's the encroaching dark, I am not after all invulnerable to the loss of light; but I am increasingly gloomy & scared. Waking in the dark and worried about everything, you know the routine. And my shoulders are seizing up again, and it may not be coincidence that we're coming to England in a fortnight. I know it's supposed to be fun, but I might be quite tense none the less.
I am supposed to be proofing an anthology of stories by Book View Cafe members, to celebrate our upcoming fifth anniversary. But m'wife said that I didn't have to do that all day, she said I could work on Kipling on Mars too: so first thing, I turned on the Laptop of Utterable Delights. At which point Windows merrily updated itself, and suddenly I no longer had control of the screen's brightness; it was set unusably dim, and nothing would change it.
Aaargh, I may have said.
But! I remembered that it was Thursday 17th October, which as all good penguins know is the release date for the latest Ubuntu, 13.10. Which will certainly run on the Laptop of Utterable Delights (I've been testing various betas over the last weeks, so I know). So I thought, okay, pffft! to Windows and Ubuntu here I come.
But! This first iteration of the installation process utterly failed to recognise my extant Windows installation, and offered only to wipe everything and just install Ubuntu. Which, y'know: I've always had a dual-boot system, I'm a great believer in fallback positions. Belt and braces and excellent tailoring too, so the trousers will in fact hold themselves up sans aids of any sort.
So I aborted that, and aaargh. I may have mentioned?
But! So happens, it transpires, that Thursday 17th October is also the release date for Windows 8.1, which is a free download for anyone with Windows 8 installed - so what the hell, quoth I. And went to the Windows Store and pressed the button, and the machine churred away for a while and asked me various impertinent questions, and now I have a clean new installation and yay, no problems with the brightness of the screen.
Tho' I still need to figure out how to get Ubuntu on there, side by side and playing nicely.
In the meantime, if you've been thinking "it's been a while since Chaz posted, I hope he's okay" - well, you're right, of course. It has been a while. Maybe it's the encroaching dark, I am not after all invulnerable to the loss of light; but I am increasingly gloomy & scared. Waking in the dark and worried about everything, you know the routine. And my shoulders are seizing up again, and it may not be coincidence that we're coming to England in a fortnight. I know it's supposed to be fun, but I might be quite tense none the less.