I'm back

I've been away. Not just from the country - but yes, Sicily was wonderful, thanks - but also from my normal online activity. Instead of posting photos and writing posts, I've spent all my computer time recently fighting with my recalcitrant iPhoto library, full of duplicates and photos on their sides since my computer died and needed a heart transplant exactly two years ago, and backing up furiously as I fixed it so that my repairs weren't lost. I've been in and out of the Time Machine - and had the vapours when it too failed for a week - and I've rationalised the things I wanted to keep.

But now I'm back. I have a new machine, and am currently using the new keyboard that came with it (don't like it as well as the old one; it's wireless, which is ok, but the keys are less sensitive) and a trackpad instead of a mouse (jury's still out, though there are good things about it). I'm working on Safari instead of Chrome for a change (I originally left Safari cos I couldn't access all Blogger's features) and fighting to remember the tabs I had before. My files are rationally organised for the first time in two years - I only found out today that they were chaotic because of a saved backup when the new hard drive was installed.

I'm looking to get my photos out of the camera and the phone, into iPhoto and then onto Flickr. I hope to find some interesting things to write about instead of this self-regarding computer stuff; you can tell how obsessed I've been. But first I need to thank my pal Rob for spending so much time helping me today despite my tendency to squawk "what are you doing now?" at awkward moments. I'm looking forward to learning a bit more at the Apple store when I go for lessons - I'm interested in doing more with my photos for a start. Right now I'm off to put my grandchildren back on the desktop, and then I'm going to bed.

Rob, if you're reading this - I got the printer to work, all by myself!

Change and decay ...

The new cell phone arrived while I was away. Actually, two phones - one for Mr B as well - and they came early despite my earnest conversation with the man from Vodafone to the effect that there would be nobody chez nous until yesterday. However, a neighbour signed for them and since last night they have sat, still in their packaging, on the sitting room floor.

Now it's midnight of another day and I've only just opened the box of one of them. It's very similar to my old one, with which I have been deliriously happy (that's hyperbole, but you get my drift), but longer and thinner. Whether or not this will be a good thing only time will tell. Apparently it has a better camera. And the one for Mr B is identical, which will be good in that he'll now be able to work mine if the need arises, but bad in that I can see one of us going off with the wrong phone.

But I realise that once again I'm on the threshold of change. And though I know that as soon as I start using it all will be well, right now I'm wondering why I have to change at all. My old phone - all of three years old, I think - is a familiar friend. And as yet they haven't sent me the promised recycling bag, so it will sit reproaching me as I set up its successor.

Maybe, after all, I am a dinosaur.

The shock of the new

A second trip in one week to the Apple Store in Glasgow saw me and Mr B staggering to our car with my shiny new iMac in its box after its memory upgrade. It is currently sitting in the hall, challenging me to get it out and do something sensible with it. But I can't face it tonight. Deeds of such magnitude need to be undertaken in the light of day, when one is in full command - not in the last remnants of post-prandial stupor and the onset of must-get-to-beditis.

And although I am looking forward enormously to the newness and the speed of it, I can't help feeling the usual trepidation. Will it go? Will it find and love the Airport? How will I feel about a full-sized desktop machine with a 20" screen after four years of a laptop? (Notwithstanding the urgings of my physio friend about the postural hell of laptop use...) And what about all the things like Firefox that I've downloaded over the years - will the new one really speak to the old one and transfer stuff? Like Data in Star Trek?

Enough already. I shall sleep on it and dream troubled dreams of change.