The laptop is acting up and I can't send email.

Pftp!

Never install Internet Explorer 8 on your computer.

That's all.

Aside from the far-too-common internet connection problems, I'm having trouble emailing my novels to People Who Need Them. I've joined a small crit group with a couple of people in my new writer's group. But when I try to email the files to them, they can't open them.

So I emailed the files to a friend at the lab where I used to work, and asked her to try. She got a message saying the files had a virus. So why didn't the other people get that message? She asked the super IT guy to try them and he went ahead and opened them (he trusts me - as if I have any control over what's happening). Anyway, he opened them without any trouble, and presumably without any viruses.

I emailed them to my husband and he could open them, and his email application proudly declared the files had been scanned and proven to be virus-FREE.

?????

My virus protection is up-to-date. I've resaved the files as new documents. I've copied and pasted them into new documents. I just made a pdf of one, and I'm waiting to hear if that works.

But what the heck is going on?

BTW, this is all PC and Vista. Bet you knew that already, right?

I had very little computer time today, although I did finish two crits for OWW. I haven't posted them yet because the laptop is Acting Strange. I don't know whether to yell at it or cry.

Of course, neither will help.

On top of all that, I'm feeling lousy. The last couple of weeks, the GERD monster has been returning and it's steadily getting worse. I've been taking medication, which helps for a few hours, but when it wears off, the pain returns with a vengence.  We were visiting friends about an hour-and-a-half from here, when things started going downhill, fast. We just got home, I've taken a pill, and I'm waiting for the pain to recede.

Not gonna get much done. I suspect I'll have to give up wine and maybe tea, too. I really miss the caffeine when I have to do that, but even green tea seems to cause a problem. I gave up coffee a year ago.

I just got the laptop to connect, so I'm going to try posting those reviews. Then I will try, once more, to check my email. If it doesn't work, maybe I'll just crawl into bed and read.

Our Favorite Computer People (FCP) just left the house after spending an hour or so zipping from one machine to another and performing Magic with keystrokes and websites Known Only to Them.

Everything works.

My husband can print from his desktop. I can print from my laptop, provided it's hooked up to the network. We can share documents. Rick's computer has sound again.  We can't use the scanner on both computers, but that's a function of the scanner. However, since we can Share, I can scan things in and drop them into the Share Folder and Rick can get them.

I'm very happy with our FCPs. I'm glad they have an office nearby.

The added bonus: we cleaned up the office so that the FCPs could find the computers and cables and things. You know, we spent a lot of money of office furniture. It's nice to see it once in a while.

In other Good News: my doctor started me on some really good drugs for restless legs. I believe I have slept almost all night, every night for the last week. 

You have no idea how amazing that is. Not one twinge. Not one! 

I finished some edits to Donamorgh and I have some notes on writing the fight scene from Tessa's POV. Several critters thought that was needed, but I was stumped how to do it, partly because I really liked Bashen's take on it. However, I think I'm over the stump and can write the scene, while still giving Bashen some screen time.

Notice I haven't said I've actually written the thing, yet. Stay tuned...

Holiday baking has commenced, with rum cakes and pizzelles sitting on the counter. I'll be doing this for a few days. Maybe I'll makesome of the chocolate bourbon balls. Everyone likes those.

Grocery shopping is on today's ticket and I'm procrastinating. I should get there before school gets out (the store shares a parking lot driveway with a high school.) Anyway, I can't bake until I get more butter.

 

Posting When Tired is not quite as serious as DUI, so I'm going to do it. Just a "fine and fancy ramble" to quote Paul Simon.

We have two computers in the shop. The good news there, is that we found a shop to take our computers to. I don't know why small business computer geeks don't advertise better. There's certainly a need for them, but finding them is nearly impossible.

They probably have enough business without advertising.

But we found these guys in a small office not far from us. Their prices seem reasonable. We'll see if they can fix the computers. If they can do that, then we'll have them come over and untangle this mess we call a network and get it actually working. That will be nice.

My novels are in their hands. I do have a backup, but it's a couple weeks old, and I made a lot of changes to Donamorgh in the last week or so. Don't want to lose it, no sir.

Tomorrow is a huge cooking day and Friday is the big holiday luncheon with my business women's group. I will be glad when it's over. Then I can concentrate on the holidays and writing and critting. Probably in that order.

I finished a full novel crit for critters.org which takes a lot of pressure off. I'll concentrate on OWW for a while, although I think I have to do a crit for the other group every other week or so, so the system doesn't boot me out. A few people have Donamorgh for the full novel, but I haven't heard from any of them, yet. I'll have to send out prompts, methinks.

Does this happen to anybody else? I'll give a novel to someone who promises to read it and give their opinion (friends, not other writers). A beta reader, I guess. Then it's total silence. Not a word. It's as if the novel never existed. I wait for months before asking about it and it's always, "I haven't had time to read it..."

Really. That's what they say.

It is true that none of these people are avid readers. But boy, this doesn't do wonders for my self-confidence. Are they afraid to tell me it's bad? Are they afraid to look at it in case it's bad? They don't want to hurt my feelings? They really haven't gotten to it, yet? Should I quit giving my novels to these people?

My husband won't read a thing I write. I gave up asking him after the first year. When I started, I assumed he'd be thrilled to read it all and give me feedback. After all, we share a passion for science fiction and talk about it all the time. It's one the main reasons we even agreed to meet each other eight years ago. But he steadfastly avoids everything I give him to read. He'll answer specific questions, like if I ask him about gravity or time travel or some specific point like that.

But he won't read it. He hasn't said why he won't, and I haven't asked. It's like the elephant in the room (or is it a gorilla?). We just never bring it up.

But it makes me feel bad. Like he doesn't think I'm capable,and he doesn't want to put himself in the position of having to say so. It's the most discouraging thing I can think of, and if I let myself dwell on it, I probably wouldn't write another word. But then I get mad and realize I don't want to be dependent on anyone's belief in my abilities or lack of them. At least, not anyone who isn't qualified and experienced enough to judge those abilities.

He supports me financially and never complains about the time I spend writing. That has to be enough, I guess.

Wow, this turned into a pity party. Told you I was tired. But you know, this wasn't easy to confess. I've never told anyone that he doesn't read my stuff. I'm ashamed of it. But I'm not taking back the post.

 Attention computer nerds: can someone explain wireless to me? I have a laptop that is "wireless ready." But my understanding is that I need to have a wireless router at home, before I can connect to the internet. Is that right? I assume I use my regular internet company (comcast). Do I have to open a separate account with them for the wireless, or can it piggyback on my broadband?
  
I'm okay so far. But what happens when I travel? How do I connect when I'm someplace else? Do I have to set up another account for that? Who with? 

How the heck does this stuff work?

I still have a recalcitrant computer, although since I'm writing this on the darn thing, you can see it's behaving at the moment. I did all kinds of things this morning, trying to get it to work, including uninstalling Adobe Reader (which I had just updated before all this started, making me think it was the big culprit). Even that didn't seem to work though, at least not immediately.

It just suddenly started working, after about 4 hours of struggling. I copied all my most important files onto a thumb drive and put them on my laptop. I've been burned before. I know, when the rotten things start acting like this,that the next thing to expect is a total crash. So I've got copies of all my writing and reviews, and all my chef files. I don't have any way of copying the Quicken file over, although they are all backed up. 

Everything is backed up - I subscribe to one of those online backup services and it does it every night. Peace of Mind.

I'm find the laptop uncomfortable to use, so I hope it doesn't come to that. If I hook a mouse up to it, it'll be better.

Four hours of messing with this really shot a hole in my day. I'm off to do some reviews.

 Computer problems have me on edge and it took me a while to remember I have a laptop and can still get something done. Of course, all my latest work is on the desktop, but I'll just have to wait to get to it. Don't know what's wrong with the stupid thing - it's just taking 5 - 10 minutes to do every little task. I'm running a test now, which has taken almost an hour so far. Should have been done in about 10 minutes.

My eyes have been bothering me a lot, lately. You know that bleary-eyed few moments when you first wake up and can't quite focus? It's been lasting for hours most days. Not even a shower helps. So everything I do is a struggle, because first I have to figure out what I'm looking at. I suppose I should get me to an eye doctor if it keeps up. 

On the writing front, yesterday it took me hours to pull out two scenes in "Land". Every word was a struggle. But I like the direction it's going. I'm now up to 70K so I'm sure the thing will easily top off at over 90,000. That's good, methinks.

I need to take some time and research merchant ships circa 1800. I've got a character making his way around one and I don't even know what the various thingies are called. This is hard to google - if I search for words like "merchant ship 1800" the closest I get to what I want is a ship's register from that time. I want some good pictues and descriptions of what the ships looked like and what equipment they had. But I haven't been able to find anything, other than some general long-distance paintings of ship's on the ocean.

Then I get frustrated, 'cause I don't want to research, I want to write. Give me my answers quickly, Google, so I can get on with the fun stuff!

Ah well. It's all a learning experience.

None of the magic Help Screens helped at all, but I found the files in a crazy folder and told it to open them as a OneNote Notebook. So the stupid thing did that and now I have my files back. I hope they are back as in, they'll be there the next time I turn on the computer. 

Why couldn't it do that to begin with?
 

WTF? Why have all my OneNote files disappeared off of my laptop? It's as if they never existed. I had client files, writing files, lots of other files...

I've run a repair program for MS Office, which is all I could find. It has finished and I should go check to see if it helped. Or if, rather, it completely overwrote everything in my Office files. 

That could happen.