Still working on it

I’m still working out the kinks with this site; I am in search of a theme that 1) doesn’t make me want to retch and 2) doesn’t have a lot of extraneous BS. I want nice, but not busy, interesting, but not insane. It’s a fine line, I guess. I’m not saying anything amazing on this site, so I don’t actually want to have to pay for a theme that will be worth more than all the words I’m saying here. I guess I shall keep looking.

Getting there

Okay. The domain transfer is finally completed, although it certainly took longer than Dreamhost estimated. WordPress, are you in denial over my abandonment? Get over it.

So now I’ve transferred my settings, plugins, posts, and attachments. I also got a new theme and changed the domain where my blog resides. I’m feeling pretty good about myself (aside from my yoga-related aches).

But I just noticed that every category came over about six times, which means I’ve got some deleting to do. Oy.

Update: Okay, I fixed the category BS, but now I see that comment counts aren’t showing up. Hardly anybody ever comments here, which is fine, but if I ever do get a freaking comment, I want to know it!

Hmmm

I requested that my domain be transferred to Dreamhost from WordPress last Wednesday, and as of yet, I’ve received no notification from WordPress that the process is complete. I’m not sure what the deal is with the holdup, but I do not appreciate it!

Moving

I will soon be moving to a new host, so this web site may look a little wonky over the next few days. I’ll update when things are all settled over at my new host.

Stupid Apple

Oh Apple, why must you break my heart? As anybody who has ever seen me with my laptop knows, I am in lurve with my MacBook. It’s pretty, it’s cool, it’s fast, and it has opened up a different world of computing. My geeky soul finds this deeply satisfying. So why did Apple have to go and release pretty much MY computer with an updated screen, built-in card reader, and lower price? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

That is so not cool. Right now, I’m weighing my options. Should I make a fuss with Apple? I do enjoy my computer, and I just bought the MacUpdate bundle, so for the last day I’ve been playing around with Parallels 4 and Windows 7. (As an aside, I cannot say enough good things about this bundle. Even if the rest of the apps sucked, which they don’t, Parallels 4 would make the whole thing worthwhile, as it retails for $79.99 and the bundle was only $49.99.) It’s been nice to use my multitouch gestures on the Windows platform, or switch back and forth between Leopard and Windows 7.

But why in the name of all that is holy did Apple have to do this to me? Couldn’t they have waited at least one year? I’m finding it different to read the reactions on Engadget and Gizmodo. The commenters at the former seem more down on Apple, while people more fanboyish seem to frequent the latter.

Really, I was looking forward to today’s announcements because I thought they were going to announce a new iPhone. They did, the iPhone 3GS, and it’s totally underwhelming. It’s faster, but it still lacks a camera, AT&T is being slow to add MMS support, and they’ve said nothing about officially sanctioned tethering, even though other international iPhone carriers are supporting it immediately. Wake me when the HTC Touch Pro 2 is released. Also of interest is the announcement that Snow Leopard will be available starting in September, and that the upgrade will cost only $29.

Much better

Just days after switching to Firefox 3.1 beta 2 and losing the functionality of some of my add-ons, 3.0.7, and official update, was released. Out of curiosity, I switched to it. I think it may be a little slower, but all of my extensions work again. As that chick on the OC said, God doesn’t give with both hands, right?

Initial impressions

Safari 4 beta is super fast when compared to Safari 3, but is not appreciably faster than Firefox 3.1 beta 2. I’m glad I upgraded both of them, though. This version of Firefox is able to load sites that I used to have to turn to Safari or Opera to see. I don’t know why. Maybe the problem had to do with my add-ons, as several of those did not make the transition to the newer version. The only one I really miss is Tab Mix Plus. I found it invaluable, and can’t wait until it is updated to work with this beta.

I am updating this post to add that neither the newer of the newer versions of Firefox and Safari could handle searching my hotmail account, and Opera handled it without any problems at all. So I guess I really do still need the three.

This is why I have three browsers

I was thinking of Neil LaBute the other day, and then last night I saw a poster for Reasons to be Pretty, his new play. I was like, SCORE! The poster had the following URL on it: http://www.doesthisplaymakemelookfat.com. I went to the web site today using Firefox, which I recently made my default browser. The site opened, but I saw nothing. I tried it in Safari, and behold, the nothingness became stuff. So now I know more about the play, which is something (I guess).

Then I wanted to try out Safari 4 beta, to see whether it can live up to the claims made by Apple. The download page on the Apple web site didn’t work for me in Firefox (0 for 2 today) or Safari (1 for 2), but it did work in Opera 10 alpha, which I think is odd. I just finished the install and am about to restart, and once I’ve messed around with it for a bit, I’ll post my impressions. I guess, actually, that I should go get Firefox 3.1 beta 2 while I’m at it.

There goes that

I deleted the Windows 7 partition on my Macbook because I found it annoying and almost never actually used it. Plus, it slowed my boot time to an unmanageable minute, from a previous low of about 12-15 seconds. Unacceptable. I thought that it would be kind of a tedious process, but the whole thing took about 10 seconds in Boot Camp. I continue to be astounded by this operating system. I still have Windows 7 on my Gateway, and plan to play around with it some more this weekend, as I have been quite remiss. Even the new, shiny beta operating system doesn’t really make me want to use the older computer that much…

And now that I found boxee, and can watch my Netflix instant access content on the Macbook, the other computer is even less useful to me.

Reading really is fundamental. I saw a post on Lifehacker about Syncplicity finally opening their beta to Mac users, and so, having never heard of this software, I read on. The post mentioned something about file sharing, and I was intrigued. I don’t really do the whole file-sharing thing anymore, and I think a lot of other people have moved away from it, too, so I was interested in what Lifehacker recommended.

I downloaded the program, and was initially confused as to how it worked. Where was the interfact? How could I see what other people were offering? Since it was a private beta, I was willing to be a little more trusting and was hoping that I’d find some good and/or rare music. So I read the guide on how to get started, but still wasn’t seeing anything relevant to file-sharing. I went back to Lifehacker to reread the post, and lo and behold, it’s a file SYNCing program, to sync files and content across two (free) or more (paid subscription) computers.

I’m such a dummy. I can’t believe I misread that so many times. If I’d been thinking, which I clearly wasn’t even the program’s name would have tipped me off.

And, just having checked, it seems that MOST of my multitouch gestures are not working with Opera. The only thing that works right off the bat is navigating up and down a page. Bummer.