It's Hard to Write With a Sick Computer
The mildly obsessive reader may note that I missed writing yesterday's entry. Allow me to blame an ailing computer.
However, that is a weaker claim than it may appear. Some time ago, I had deliberately bought a new but secondary computer to save me from this very problem. Also, I keep my files on a USB thumb drive, so these files are available everywhere. So: what went wrong? Are there any lessons to share?
First, I spent a fair bit of time trying to use my regular anti-virus software on my primary computer. Later I will post some technical notes, but it is enough to say that they did not work well enough and they took a lot of time.
Second, I am a bit of a dinosaur: too well adapted to the mouse and keyboard on my primary computer, and too reliant on touch typing. I was just uncomfortable with the laptop. Although I am typing this on the laptop, and using touch more than sight, I am still slower and more tense than I should be.
Third, the bookmarks for my most-used web sites are on the main computer. These are not just the sites where I publish articles or blogs: these are also the sites where I read, take notes, and do research. So every task was slower and more awkward. This point includes switching from Internet Explorer to FireFox. I suspect that the virus arrived from a web site, and that IE is less vigilant than FireFox.
Finally, I had not purchased a copy of Microsoft office products for this laptop. Although OpenOffice handles Word 2007 documents fairly well, I do not trust it with Excel spreadsheets. That eliminates some of my important tracking tools, so I was less inclined to keep up with all the tasks. For example, the titles and URLs for my historic articles are stored in a spreadsheet, so I won't post those paragraphs today.
Just so my blog readers do not feel singled out for neglect, I also spent a day away from my social networks on FaceBook, Digg and Squidoo. While away, a "giant Squid" returned a visit I had paid to one of her lenses by "liking" a couple of my Furniture lenses. Thats a big "whoo-hoo" in the Squidoo world.
However, that is a weaker claim than it may appear. Some time ago, I had deliberately bought a new but secondary computer to save me from this very problem. Also, I keep my files on a USB thumb drive, so these files are available everywhere. So: what went wrong? Are there any lessons to share?
First, I spent a fair bit of time trying to use my regular anti-virus software on my primary computer. Later I will post some technical notes, but it is enough to say that they did not work well enough and they took a lot of time.
Second, I am a bit of a dinosaur: too well adapted to the mouse and keyboard on my primary computer, and too reliant on touch typing. I was just uncomfortable with the laptop. Although I am typing this on the laptop, and using touch more than sight, I am still slower and more tense than I should be.
Third, the bookmarks for my most-used web sites are on the main computer. These are not just the sites where I publish articles or blogs: these are also the sites where I read, take notes, and do research. So every task was slower and more awkward. This point includes switching from Internet Explorer to FireFox. I suspect that the virus arrived from a web site, and that IE is less vigilant than FireFox.
Finally, I had not purchased a copy of Microsoft office products for this laptop. Although OpenOffice handles Word 2007 documents fairly well, I do not trust it with Excel spreadsheets. That eliminates some of my important tracking tools, so I was less inclined to keep up with all the tasks. For example, the titles and URLs for my historic articles are stored in a spreadsheet, so I won't post those paragraphs today.
Just so my blog readers do not feel singled out for neglect, I also spent a day away from my social networks on FaceBook, Digg and Squidoo. While away, a "giant Squid" returned a visit I had paid to one of her lenses by "liking" a couple of my Furniture lenses. Thats a big "whoo-hoo" in the Squidoo world.