A Storm of Comments!!!

The craziness must stop! AAahhhh!!! Three whole comments in as many weeks!!! Of course, I just found out, as I neglect to check my gmail very often, and these are on older posts. My responses:

Dear Baba Wayo,

Unfortunately, I gave up on the tablet PC. It is sitting in a box until I get around to scouring it of personal info and selling it at a yard sale. GoBinder wasn't really the problem in the end. The constant noise level of the fans during class, and the feeling like I was staring into a tiny window to write on just got to be too much. Also, it did not effect reducing my backpack load, since I can't download my textbook onto it and still READ my textbook while taking notes.

Short Story: It just became a pain in the ass, and a huge disappointing waste of money. People thought it was cool, though...*sigh*


Dear Beakerann,

The title of the book is called, I shit you not:

"Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle"

Watermelon pickle sounds more appealing each and every time I read the words...mmmmmmmm

Dear Stewie (here's Stewie Blog, can he train Rigel to type without chewing off the keys?!?!?!)

All is well, and Rigel sends his thanks for belated hatchday wishes. I haven't been around Birdboard much since I've been busy, except that I put up a long-ish post looking for help with ants, which quickly got buried and ignored. I have some other questions I need to get around to asking, which I will try to keep short (ha!). I'm hesitant to keep posting questions, since I don't post *look what my birdy did cute* stuff there since I have a blog for that... it makes me seem a bit needy and not very fun. In my own mind, anyway.

Tablet Review (again)

My new tablet is pissing me off, so I already want a brand-new one. I'm willing to buy it as a replacement for my primary laptop. That is if I can also get a docking station or even just a laptop holder that would put it at a good slant for viewing while using the wireless keyboard. We'll still end up losing a good chunk of change over it though, and I doubt the Hubs will like the idea. I won't have to get used to a tiny screen like the one I have now (10.4'') if I get a 12.1'' and use Hubs' old monitor we have in the office when I need larger. I was dumb to get 10.4'' anyway, because the case is the same, just with a smaller screen area.

--Fan runs too loud and too often, without maxing out the processor, even when doing the most basic tasks and even when not warm. It does, however, get warm after awhile of doing next to nothing. It is nothing short of ridiculous. I'm willing to deal with the annoyance if it were only me, but I already get slightly annoyed looks from my classmates, and I'm not willing to be rude.

--I have an indoor display, which is supposedly best if you aren't using it in the brighter light outdoors. However the glare off the classroom lights means that I can't reliably see what I'm writing most of the time. Perhaps an Indoor/Outdoor display will be better, or perhaps this is just a bad example for an Indoor display?

--I can't get the pen calibrated in portrait mode, so I'm touching nowhere near where my pointer is actually hitting. This plus the bad display means that I can't hit the scrollbar for fresh paper in the middle of writing. Bad. Somehow landscape is better, but sometimes I need to write in portrait, period.

--I'm torn on using it as a graphing calculator, because Duh! these and later professors probably won't let me use my tablet on tests, but there is a fair likelihood of using the TI-84 on tests. So I might as well get as much practice as possible using the TI-84, and just dream about all the cool stuff I could do with MathJournal on the tablet. :(

The only good thing I can say is that the battery life on my tablet is amazing, 7+ hours! Reboot only takes about 10 minutes off the remaining power.

Week 1 Update

Is the first week really only halfway through???!!! Oh well, its the tough half that's through, so I'll take it. Sorry this is kind of long and rambling. I should post more often.

The Bad

As a follow-up to the sneezing episode a few weeks ago, the skin around Rigel's eyes now has faint spots of pink. I called the vet, missed the return call from the Dr., and now I have to wait until tomorrow to talk to him. He'll probably call while I'm in class.

Nothing makes me fell more dumb and worthless than math, nay Calculus.
--Three of my 4 courses, and of course both labs, require Calculus.
--I couldn't do the review of Cal1 tonight. I mean I feel really dumb right now. I'll have to go to the Math Lab for tutoring tomorrow afternoon, but that won't protect me from turning in a pathetic homework assignment first. :(

My Schedule
--Monday was the first day for 2 classes, which means stress.
-- Tuesday was the first day for my other 2 classes and its also Chem Lab day, which is 4 more hours and equals more stress and a birdy all alone all day. This makes me sad.
-- Wednesday is Physics Lab day, 2nd longest day of the week. Lonely Bird but I come home for 2 hours for lunch. Theoretically.
--Thursday and Friday will be wonderfully relaxing after that, right? Please?

My Tablet PC is pissing me off so much that the description got too long. Tablet post to follow later for those of you who are interested.

My right shoulder is killing me, and its not even from carrying around a giant bag of books. It started before Monday. I think it has to do mostly with how I sit with my laptop, and partially with writing hunched over a desk.
--Yesterday I downed 3 Tylanol at once, put a Tiger Balm patch on it, and still no relief. --Then before bed I took 2 Aleve that helped a little, and kept the patch on all night.
--Of course it hurts again now, I only took 1 Aleve after school today.

The Good

My physics professor is great, and she's also my adviser. The other two females in class are pre-engineering or chemistry majors, I think. But hey, they're there so I don't feel surrounded! Alas, this class is the reason I had to get the graphing calculator, and I'm not at all comfortable with it. :( I should have splurged for one when I started Cal1 in spring, but I didn't want to buy it and realize I needed a nicer one for Physics. Oh well.

Thank the FSM for British Lit. I think that course is going to be a fun diversion from math torment. The professor is very energetic and chatty and really made the classroom comfortable for us to laugh and contribute to the conversation. I left class feeling very upbeat, and not just because the girl who sits in front of me is a Whovian. (yay!)

Monday is Labor Day!

Tablet Review

Things that annoy me:
First, I would appreciate if the fan didn't run almost constantly.
Second, the painting program froze/crashed twice when I was almost done with a picture of my birdie.

Anyway, it does seem to be pretty useful. I downloaded the Education Pack which has GoBinder Lite. Using that, I put my course schedule into an Outlook-type calendar. It also creates a tab for each class where I can add notes documents and store relevant web clippings and handouts downloaded from Blackboard. Sure, XP Tablet comes with a Journal almost identical to the notes in GoBinder, and I'm smart enough to manage folders myself, but hey its nice to have it all bundled in one program and its free anyway.

It also came with a few games to help hone my pen skills*. I do need to re-calibrate the pen because its tough to write with an offset like that. My goal for this weekend is to copy my last Calculus and Chemistry notes into the Tablet, as practice and as a review for the upcoming term.

*at least thats what I tell myself while wasting 30 minutes on a crossword.

See TJ Write

Hi from Tablet Land...
That took longer than it should have, I wish you could see how bad my handwriting is!
Maybe later I'll do some in paint.