Argh! The pain!
Mar. 28th, 2006 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changelingIt is very hard to be online at the moment. Well, I say at the moment, but as many of you have probably noticed, I've been having major difficulties for at least the last six months. The latest excitement is that my PC's processor has been fried, due to my father failing to put the sides on the box since he put it together for me for my birthday in February last year. If I had known that such a thing was possible, I should have put the sides on myself.
So now I'm on "my" laptop again. The laptop that has fuck-all of my stuff on it: no photos, none of my artwork or stories, none of my Fat Lady Digest stuff. And most importantly, NO PUBLISHING SOFTWARE.
I have a copy of InDesign on my PC. I can't finish FLD because I have no software to create the PSD. I won't have any software until I get my PC fixed, because I certainly don't have the money to go and buy InDesign, and when I tried to install the trial version onto this PC, it wouldn't work. I don't know. Maybe I should try to install the trial version on the family PC and finish it off, because I feel like I'm letting down all the authors who said they'd get their stuff to us. I really want this issue done.
I'm really sad that this will probably be the first and last issue of Fat Lady Digest. I really like the concept of a hard-copy zine, but frankly three people aren't enough to put out a magazine; not when they have real jobs and lives and so on. There just aren't enough hours in the week. If we could get another three or four people involved, ideally people who have some training in editing or production or so on, I think we could do it, but as it is, I guess it's just going to sink without a trace.
I hope I can get it done by June.
The brand-new problem with getting online is the fact that the wireless network which Raven kindly put in for us doesn't seem to want to talk to my laptop. It won't talk to me out in the living room, except for occasionally (making it something like S---'s little sister). It won't talk to me in the sitting room. It won't talk to me in the bedroom. This makes it, I feel, rather useless for what I want a laptop and wireless for, viz. to peruse the interweb wherever I want to, so that if I want to look up conversions from Fahrenheit to Celsius from the kitchen bench, I can.
So now I'm tucked up on the armchair in our study, where the wireless modem is, laptop on my lap — it's not actually very comfortable, as my lower back is getting no support at all — and working from here. I can't work on the desk because it's quite small, and entirely taken up with my massive monitor. And even now, the internet keeps dropping out, and occasionally refuses to reconnect. It is all very frustrating.
My dad sent me an email saying that he was getting rid of some networking stuff, so I forwarded that to Raven, in the hope that this would make the network (in my term) "more betterer", but I just got a polite and bemused email from Raven saying it was not necessary. Having looked at the email again, I've just realised that what Dad's getting rid of isn't actually wireless stuff at all. Duh.
The other downside of this brand-new networking is that my laptop and the fambly computer aren't talking to each other, and don't know the other exists. This is only really a problem when I want to print something, as it's the family computer upstairs that has the printer, so recently I've had to email it to myself and then go upstairs, boot Viv off, and then print. This is rather time consuming.
I genuinely don't understand. We never had a problem with Daharja's place, even if we were two rooms away. Of course, I could go and talk to Raven, but frankly I've felt like we've been a real imposition lately, and that he's barely been able to move without some computer problem cropping up here — first the family computer melting, then someone shorting out the power supply by using it in a storm, then sorting out the networking so my computer could be brought in, then my computer's processor melting. He has been paid for some of his work, but at real mates' rates, which means that it's scarcely a return for the amount of work he's put in. I feel like I should really just suck it up and deal. And maybe see if I can buy a new processor and motherboard with the second freelance cheque I just got.
So now I'm on "my" laptop again. The laptop that has fuck-all of my stuff on it: no photos, none of my artwork or stories, none of my Fat Lady Digest stuff. And most importantly, NO PUBLISHING SOFTWARE.
I have a copy of InDesign on my PC. I can't finish FLD because I have no software to create the PSD. I won't have any software until I get my PC fixed, because I certainly don't have the money to go and buy InDesign, and when I tried to install the trial version onto this PC, it wouldn't work. I don't know. Maybe I should try to install the trial version on the family PC and finish it off, because I feel like I'm letting down all the authors who said they'd get their stuff to us. I really want this issue done.
I'm really sad that this will probably be the first and last issue of Fat Lady Digest. I really like the concept of a hard-copy zine, but frankly three people aren't enough to put out a magazine; not when they have real jobs and lives and so on. There just aren't enough hours in the week. If we could get another three or four people involved, ideally people who have some training in editing or production or so on, I think we could do it, but as it is, I guess it's just going to sink without a trace.
I hope I can get it done by June.
The brand-new problem with getting online is the fact that the wireless network which Raven kindly put in for us doesn't seem to want to talk to my laptop. It won't talk to me out in the living room, except for occasionally (making it something like S---'s little sister). It won't talk to me in the sitting room. It won't talk to me in the bedroom. This makes it, I feel, rather useless for what I want a laptop and wireless for, viz. to peruse the interweb wherever I want to, so that if I want to look up conversions from Fahrenheit to Celsius from the kitchen bench, I can.
So now I'm tucked up on the armchair in our study, where the wireless modem is, laptop on my lap — it's not actually very comfortable, as my lower back is getting no support at all — and working from here. I can't work on the desk because it's quite small, and entirely taken up with my massive monitor. And even now, the internet keeps dropping out, and occasionally refuses to reconnect. It is all very frustrating.
My dad sent me an email saying that he was getting rid of some networking stuff, so I forwarded that to Raven, in the hope that this would make the network (in my term) "more betterer", but I just got a polite and bemused email from Raven saying it was not necessary. Having looked at the email again, I've just realised that what Dad's getting rid of isn't actually wireless stuff at all. Duh.
The other downside of this brand-new networking is that my laptop and the fambly computer aren't talking to each other, and don't know the other exists. This is only really a problem when I want to print something, as it's the family computer upstairs that has the printer, so recently I've had to email it to myself and then go upstairs, boot Viv off, and then print. This is rather time consuming.
I genuinely don't understand. We never had a problem with Daharja's place, even if we were two rooms away. Of course, I could go and talk to Raven, but frankly I've felt like we've been a real imposition lately, and that he's barely been able to move without some computer problem cropping up here — first the family computer melting, then someone shorting out the power supply by using it in a storm, then sorting out the networking so my computer could be brought in, then my computer's processor melting. He has been paid for some of his work, but at real mates' rates, which means that it's scarcely a return for the amount of work he's put in. I feel like I should really just suck it up and deal. And maybe see if I can buy a new processor and motherboard with the second freelance cheque I just got.