My “trusty” Windows machine got sick yesterday morning. I had downloaded and installed the latest version if iTunes which may have had something to do with the problem. However, when I plugged my iPod in to synchronize, the system rebooted and networking stopped working. There was also a strange smell of bad electricity! So, today I bought a new motherboard and installed it in the machine. Now the machine starts to load the Windows OS and then reboots. I can’t get it to boot into safe mode or any other configuration. So, it’ll go into the shop Monday and hopefully they can resurrect the system. Dang!
So, last evening and today I’ve been using the iMac Mini as my main machine. I really like it, however there are a couple of fairly quirky things. For instance, the Safari web browser works pretty well but there are some interesting problems. The URL history, for instance, can only be accessed by going to the menu bar and clicking on the “history” item, unlike Firefox where a right click shows the last URL’s accessed. Control left arrow doesn’t move back one word, it moves to the beginning of the line — alt left arrow is the key combo on the iMac. Getting used to these strange things will take some time. I’ve just found that when I’m writing a blog entry, all of my “quicktags” don’t display. I’ve no idea why — perhaps the HTML or the javascript is wrong or something. I miss having the tags directly available. I think I’ll check to see if a version of Firefox is available for the Macintosh and load that so that I can have a more similar interface.
Today has been fairly busy with little things. There isn’t much time left before we go cruising! This morning about 9:30 a.m. I was deciding how many changes of underwear I should take with me. That lead to the question of what laundry facilities were available on the cruise ship. I went online and found that a self-service laundromat is located on the same deck as our cabin and not far away. That was good information. At the same time I noticed that there are a couple of webcams available from the Grand Princess. I checked the bridge cam and got a great picture of the dock area where the ship was docked. That would have been about 5:30 p.m. — and it was DARK! Way too early to be dark!! We’ll just be getting warmed up at 5:30 p.m.!! Anyhow, the ship is on it’s way back to Barcelona to get ready for us to board a week from Monday.
Today was wet and chilly. The forecast calls for snow in the mountains overnight tonight and Sunday night. Maybe we’re in for an early winter?? A good winter with lots of snow would be very welcome here after several years of below-average snowfall. Meanwhile, I’m just glad I’ve got a backup computer! This iMac is a nice machine whenever I get the quirks figured out….