all things me

I got my new work computer last week. It’s very spiffy, black and silver. And not to mention fast.

It, however, doesn’t have any sound device installed, so every sound it needed to make (Windows warnings), it beeped from its rear end. Extremely annoying! Especially when the sound was made even when I pressed an arrow key at the end of a file. I searched for the solution and found a nice tip: If you right-click My Computer, choose Properties, Hardware tab, and select Device Manager, check Show hidden devices under View, go to Non-plug and play, select Beep and set it to Disabled, the bleeping beep is gone!

And it IS gone!

*pummels the arrow key at the end of a file*

Yesterday I bought the M. Night Shyamalan DVD box which includes Sixth Sense, the Signs, and Unbreakable. Today I found the uncut Stand (!!!!!!!!) at a bookstore while I went to buy Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons (it was on sale). Alas, both the books are in bad shape (the saleswoman helped me to get the book from the top shelf and said “I’ll get the one on the back so it’ll be in better shape”. Maybe it is better, but it has a very badly bent corner on the back. Oh well. I don’t care about the D. Brown book but the bad shape of The Stand bums me a bit (the front leaf is wrinkled and there’s a little tear on the back). However, it was a miracle I found it — the last one in stock — so I’m just glad I did.

Tomorrow I think I’ll go get my credit card (or it’s just plastic, no credit) so I can go a) clothes shopping and b) VHS + DVD-RW shopping.

Today I’ve had the most persistent headache. I popped a pill (a mild one, people say it’s just placebo) ages ago but it’s still thumping in my head. I feel like I should drill a hole on my temples. I’ve been reading grammar “all day”, I have a little exam tomorrow. Interestingly, I’ve even learnt something new.

This has been a feature of Google for a long time, I presume, but now that I’m writing descriptions, or terminological definitions, to the terms in the lexical ontologies I realize how nifty it is. By writing define: and a term (define:dictionary), you get several definitions picked up from all over the web. All on one page, no link-clicking required.

Hi, my name is Minna and I’m an alone-in-front-of-tv-laugher. My sister can’t understand it. When she’s at the computer and hears me laughing, alone in my room, she thinks — or is convinced — I’ve gone bonkers.

I, however, don’t see any difference between social and solitary tv laughing. The programme is no less funny (or more so) when watched alone. Thus, I shouldn’t feel the need to stifle my bursts of laughter just because I happen to be alone.

My preferred SIFOTL programmes are Coupling and Scrubs. They’re hilarious.

I don’t understand people who write their URL in the WP forum profile without the http:// so when the link is created around the person’s name, their site URL gets attached to the forum address making urls like “http://wordpress.org/support/www.mycoolnewsite.com”.

… which is why I also bought Dreamcatcher today. It’s always dangerous to go through the DVD section in sales season (I took a biiiig de-tour to the horror section though so it’s all my fault).

Yesterday we finally got ADSL connection. I forgot it at one point and wondered how the sites load so quickly It’s nice, we’ve had 56 kb dial-up (it might’ve been 28 at the beginning) since 1997, and it was annoying not being able to download programs properly (for example my Java environment is really old because the file sizes are whopping). GetRight which is able to pause and resume downloads only works on IE so I don’t use it…

Anyway, downloads are a rarity, but it’s wonderful to have pages load really snap.

I’m reading Dan Brown‘s “Angels and Demons” at the moment. It’s soooo good! Very addictive! When I get off the bus I feel like walking my nose in the book all the time. Before lectures I read until the teacher starts talking and as soon as they say “let’s take a break” I dig the book up from my backpack.
I've read Da Vinci Code and I have already bought Digital Fortress and Deception Point. I wish it was this easy to get all the Kings in my bookshelf. Then again, it’s better that there are loads of Kings even though it takes time to acquire them.

(The computer guy that came here to set up the ADSL was really cute Like a Gary Barlow in his early years.)

I’ve been trying to make people use Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer. I’ve succeeded a couple of times, but there is one big hurdle in my way.

People who aren’t comfortable with English, will have difficulties using Mozilla — especially if computers are ominous machines to them to begin with. Mozilla’s Finnish translation is, I hear, lacking (I’m sure the bigger languages have more people sharing the burden of localisation). And the small glimpse I got showed one of the most disgusting mistakes there is. The Finnish localisation project is probably run by computer guys whose grasp of grammar is infamously bad (oh, the shivers I get on every single computer studies’ lecture).

My sister claims Mozilla is noticeably slower than IE on her machine (*cough*as if*cough* she has twice as much Ghz than I do). Maybe she says that just to spite me. Sure pages load slower on the first view in Mozilla because she has all the files in the IE cache!

I would install Mozilla on my grandparents machine but Grandpa doesn’t know any English. I’m having high hopes that Dad will come around.

I’ve thought about offering my help to the project, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the time.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!
In Finland it’s a day for friendships which is much fairer because we don’t all have valentines (or maybe you all do, but I don’t) but people usually have friends…

Don’t know if any of you ever glance at the Recently updated posts, but if you glance at it now you can see I’ve been updating my old old posts. Yes, I admit it. I’ve been checking my posts for typos. I’m a little odd like that. But boy did I find some silly blurts.

I’m also pondering whether or not to publish a post about the secret of mine that is now done, finished, over (I guess) on my part. ‘On my part’ being the operative phrase. Aren’t I annoying?

This, well… yesterday, morning I was feeling very sick. Very. I don’t really know why, but the world was spinning around me and I could hardly stand straight, let alone walk. I just hope it’s not yet another bug because I’ve missed enough lectures as it is (= one). Luckily, it settled down after a few hours and the rest of the day I’ve been feeling fine — if a little queasy. I wonder what that was all about.

Ick ick ick. I don’t like the default theme, but I have to go to the sauna now and I’ll continue upgrade after that. I have my theme ready and everything.

Anyway, finally the server works and I was able to upgrade and SEE that it works. *dances around*

OK, now. Theme’s up but that’s all. I’ll be adding some plugins and things as soon as 24 ends

Now my upgrade to WP1.5 “Strayhorn” is pretty much complete. Everything looks more or less the same, right? It was quite an ordeal, but not because of WP. The server decided to start acting up right when I was going to upgrade the database (corruption hazard, I’d guess) and then I had to go to the sauna and then watch 24. But, after wondering why my menu’s links aren’t clickable (an extra closing div), why the cool comment thing I did wouldn’t show up (there was a is_single inside the comment call function), checking that the site really works well table-less (I’m so proud of myself!), and activating Spam Karma and trackback moderating, I can try to relax for the night.

There are still things to do: I had “home-made” static pages which I have to change to pages and some plugins to activate. I also have to dig into the world of page templates and make the most of it because now my code is full of <?php if (is_whatever()) { ?> statements — very messy.
Of course I have to update Ami’s page, but it’s an earlier version of 1.5 so there’s not much to do.

It’s going to take some time to learn where everything is. Write and Manage are different things and I have to remember to modify the right file because of the theme system (great feature). I am going to hack that Dashboard away because it takes quite a while to load all the stuff it loads (feeds from several dev sites, I assume, plus the dev blog at WP home)

I love the is_ functions that are now properly a feature.

I gotta get to bed now.

[edit: 16th, 2005] I had to edit the login page because the font in the fields was GIGANTIC. Geez. I ain’t blind. [/edit]