sundries

[rm]

What my mother had for me did turn out to be money from my grandfather's estate. Not a huge amount, but enough that I can buy a new computer, which I've needed to do for at least a year, and definitely go to Britain with Patty (Cardiff!) in April and then put the rest responsibly into savings.

All of which means I need to make some computer decisions. I have no idea what I want, but I'd like to do this before Dragon*Con. There are pros and cons to both Macs and PCs for me (I'm only looking at laptops btw). Uses are Intnernet and word processing mainly. Needs to not get cranky about things like PowerPoint and Photoshop, and if it's a PC has to run Access (don't ask) well. If it wouldn't kick the price too much higher, video editing capabilities are of potential interest. Ideally wanting to spend around $1300 or less, but willing to go higher for some random convincing reason.

My father's self-publishing "empire" continues apace. But, he's decided to do a book of all these vintage pinup photos he's collected from 1910, and I told him, yes, I can help promote that! So maybe my father finally has a good plan. He's also doing a book of his photography -- it's 50 years of New York City stuff, and he's got a good eye, so that might be something I'm willing to help him out with too.

We talked about Mad Men a bit. My father's first job was at BBD&O in 1955 and he worked at J. Walter Thompson during the era of Ehrlichman and has some pretty chilling stories about all of that. He was shocked by how much I remember of Madison Avenue from my childhood. It was pretty interesting, and he should be racing to write this stuff down, not all this other stuff he works on.

I finished the essay -- an hour and a half late, but hopefully the editor will be forgiving.

Comments

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I needed a new machine when I went to San Francisco last month (hubby left the backpack with my old laptop on BART; luckily it's made its way back to us but I couldn't be without a machine for a month) and got a Toshiba Netbook. I love it.

I went with the upgrades that Best Buy suggested, especially the extra memory so I could edit photos.

I got it primarily for web surfing, e-mail checking, photo editiing, and the occasional word processing.

One of the reason's I love it so much is its size. It's smaller than most of the Harry Potter hard back books! ;-p I can stuff it in most of my every day bags and be good to go. I can finally have the access to computers that I've been dreaming about since 4th grade! (Woohoo!)