The Dreaded Blue Screen

So - it has happened to me too. My laptop has crashed, and all I get is the infamous Blue Screen. Maybe it can be rescued, but to what cost? I've had the machine for 4 years now, which is rather good for a laptop, and I actually bought a stationary PC last summer, since the old one was getting slow. But for writing and surfing while traveling I thought it would work a little longer.

Now that it seems like I won't have a laptop anymore I'm considering getting a new one. Buy me a little happiness? Some say this is a Zsa Zsa Gabor quote, but if not it can still illustrate my view today: "If you don't think money can buy you happiness, you're shopping at the wrong store." Luckily the one I'm thinking of isn't available at the moment, so there's no risk of doing anything rash.

I was thinking about getting a Mac, mostly because of its design, but I'm not too keen to convert my old beliefs. But this little baby from Packard Bell looks nice, doesn't it? In this case small is a good thing...

Disconnected

Almost bizarre, but losing the phone might not be all that bad. Having realized that the world still is spinning, it's quite relaxing not to be "available" all the time; and considering that one of the tasks now was to look after myself, I must say it's handy to have an excuse for not being "at service". I really have a hard time saying no to my kids if they call and ask to be picked up, even if there are buses... (You know I exaggerate a little, right? I see it may sound as I was literally attached to the phone...)

Aren't you laughing now, 'cause who am I kidding? It's been two days only, and I (nor you) won't be surprised if I've gotten myself a new phone by tomorrow. I guess for most people nowadays, phones are something we take more or less for granted, and not only the younger generations. At least here in Norway, everyone seem to be "connected" wherever they go. When there's music coming out of the purse of the elderly lady with the walking stick sitting next to you on the bus, no eyebrows are raised.

Remember when I got my first phone 10 years ago, when we lived in Australia. It was bought out of necessity; being in a new country with no family or friends around, we figured the kids' school should be able to contact me at all times. But I must admit I thought it was very "cool", so hip putting the phone on the table while I had lunch with Julia at some fancy place. Imagine that monster, as big as domestic phone, with the antenna sticking out at least 3 cm's. Real smart.

But one aspect of not having a phone late at night while a little intoxicated, is that you can't use it for dialing that number you shouldn't be dialing. So by being deprived of my means of communicating, it also prevented me from being just slightly silly at its best, and downright stupid and embarrassing at its worst. So my next phone maybe should be the one from LG which incorporates a breathalyser and "allows users to program the phone to prevent the dialing of specific numbers on certain nights and after a certain time."?

Disclosure

If things go well, I'll reveal "the secret" on Friday...

Hands On Research

I'm not sure if I'm feverish or just plain brain dead, but these days I found the silliest things amusing. Like my new phone. It's red and almost, as Toril said: sexy. I wouldn't actually say that about such a prosaic thing as a mobile phone. But this one? It is. Kind of.

When I first read about it long before it was released I new I would like to have one, and I just figured I'd wait for it. But just shortly after, my son's phone was stolen, so I offered him mine and bought a cheap phone for myself. From then and until now I've been pretending I was over this kind of gadgetry and was perfectly happy with my very basic phone. No camera, no extras, no nothing really. I could make calls with it, though. Kind of the idea with a phone, isn't it? And why bother with all that extra stuff? The cameras are usually not that good, and if I want to take pictures I'll use a proper one. Music? Have my 6Gb Mp3 player, no need for that.

Lucky me, my son is a teenager, and a lot of them have some serious problems in differentiating between what's their's and not; so for the second time this year some kleptomaniac couldn't resist the temptation, while my son was playing basketball. Now I could stop pretending, and I ordered the SonyEricsson K610i which arrived today. This is when the fun starts, and the very reason I first noticed it:

It has a blogger function!

With just a few key strokes I can publish to my new mobile blog account, as for now only in old Blogger, but hopefully new Beta Blogger will catch up pretty soon. What I hope even more is that I somehow can find some inspiration in it too, regarding my field of studies. Blogger Mobile could be relative to both "Digital Culture & Digital Media" and "ICT & Learning", I guess. And I DESPERATELY need inspiration.

Have to remind me what I told myself when I first began this journey at the University. I said, that it's not only what I learn there and what stimulates me, but in finding out what's not stimulating I will get a clearer picture of what I want to do. And one thing for sure, I'm too old to be back in elementary school with reading aloud from a book. Pun intended.

This One Isn't Red...

...but it will hopefully capture that colour correctly. My new toy. Don't you just love it when work is fun?

I See Red Again

I have previously written about different red things in my life. Last year I bought an espresso machine which is red, and when I moved into this apartment I put a red sofa in my livingroom. I don't wear red clothes that often, difficult colour that way, but I had a pair of favourite sneakers, also red, which sadly were chewed up by the dog.

Sweet dreams in luxurious red pure silk sheets would be nice, wouldn't it? Today I'll settle for something as prosaic as a cell phone. And why? Because it's red, isn't that obvious?

No, the real reason is that my son got his phone stolen (again!), and I offered him mine.

So I could buy a new one...

Gadgets

As I'm supposed to be writing an essay right this moment (due tomorrow) and I can't seem to find a good entrypoint, I thought I'd rather post a few words here. Just to start things up, so to speak. And what could be more innocent than just happily show off my most recent gadget?

On and off, I think I've been a Gadget Girl for all my life. Nowadays I try to be more sensible, and really think it through before I buy anything, but the feeling now is the same, as when I got my first Nintendo Game&Watch back in 1981. Gadgets are toys for people who claim that are not playing.

I like words in general and some even more, "gadget" being one of them. So I thought I would look up what Wikipedia had to say about the subject, and I found that the top example of a gadget is a Mp3-player! Can you now guess what I bought?
This probably just shows how predictable I am, more than anything, but yes, I am now the extatic owner of an Creative Zen Micro. And yes I know, late as well. I know people have been using Mp3-players for a long time, I just thought I didn't need one. A walkman would do just fine for me, or a MD-player. I've tried that too.

But just imagine bringing your whole CD-collection (or a large chunk of it, anyway) with you, whereever you go. Usually I'm too tired to enjoy any music when I get home, this way I can listen to my favourites outdoors, crisscrossing the City of Bergen.

While I was doing more "important" stuff on the computer, I ripped about a thousand songs and transferred them to the player in no time. Nifty! Tom Waits, Barbara Morrison, Nicolas Repac, Van Morrison, Jan Garbarek, and all that Jazz...

Here's another Gadget Girl with things on her mind.

Espresso dreams

I've made my choice. And which test did I rely on? The norwegian site, or did the swedish one make more sense? Neither, sort of. I chose a red one.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about I suggest you read the previous post.)

Choosing bright colours almost seems like a pattern recently, and will make an excellent topic for an upcoming blogpost. My starsign is Taurus, and I'm seeing red...