Baby's got a new ride

I have a new-to-me computer! And I love it.


We got a new 17 inch MacBook Pro for our daughter as a college graduation present. She needed an upgrade as her computer, a first generation 15 inch MacBook Pro, was starting to struggle a bit when she did statistical modeling on it. We timed the purchase so that her new laptop arrived when she came home for a week after her surgery. When we gave the new laptop to her, she gave me the first-gen MBP. Which, I will have you know, she bought herself. She is not accustomed to getting her computers from Mom and Dad, she has saved up her pennies and bought two Apple laptops over the years. I’m the lucky person who has inherited each of her purchases over time, though I paid cash for the first one. This lappy is a gift.


We don’t think we gave an extravagant gift. For one thing, my father and stepmother contributed towards the purchase, and are official go-givers with us. The new machine is an investment in her professional future. She NEEDS computing power to do her research. This gift fits our budget a lot better than a car would. And she’s earned it - she is graduating from McGill with First Class Honors.


Everything works better for me on my new machine. No way around it, machines using Tiger, the optimal operating system for my old computer, are struggling to keep up these days. We cloned my old machine to the newer one, and there I was - my bookmarks and settings, my files, everything that is me in my digital identity. The only program I had to upgrade was my accounting software. Today’s adventure will be podcasts, which I had given up on, they loaded so slowly on my old computer.


I spent the day yesterday cleaning up my old computer to give to my mom. The machine is a 12 inch PowerBook G4, and this baby has been a trooper for 8 years now. Mom currently uses WebTV, and her digital life would be enhanced by a computer. I’ve cleaned out my files and bookmarks, and left her an assortment of family pics in iPhoto and a collection of classical and folk music in iTunes. Still to be done: installing her printer and configuring her email, and buying a new battery. Mom will be here in about 10 days time. I hope to set her up with a Gmail account and hope she’ll have fun playing with it on our wireless network. She currently plans to stick with dial-up, and the PB will meet her needs with aplomb.


Off I go to download podcasts!

Comments

Post a Comment

Please support the EGFR Resisters Research Fund!

To help improve outcomes for people like me with EGFR mutated lung cancer, please donate to the EGFR Resisters' Research Fund. All donations are tax deductible and are in a restricted fund with the Bonnie Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, a four-star rated charity. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!


Popular posts from this blog

I am not a rock. I am not an island.

Image
After a busy couple of months, I have retired, and I am under treatment. The treatment is a pill taken first thing in the morning. The medicine is very expensive, to all of us in the aggregate although not to me as an individual. Thank goodness for good health insurance. I do have a genetic mutation in the cancer and am able to take targeted treatment. I’m dealing with some side effects, but they aren’t as uncomfortable as full-bore chemo. I’ve been taking care of business. New wills and powers of attorney are executed, my passwords are in a sealed envelope in the lawyer’s safe, beneficiaries are updated, and expenses have been dialed back. I finished my job as neatly and completely as possible, and left matters in good shape for my successor. All of this is liberating. As each task gets done, there is more time to simply enjoy living. I am an oldest child, and I’ve spent much of my life being a responsible person. Now I am pulling back from that role. At the moment, I have very few re...
Read more

Why I am Using Research-Based Medical Treatments Instead of Naturopathic Treatments

Image
I’ve heard many stories of people being sent links to websites promoting alternate naturopathic treatments for cancer by well meaning friends and family. It finally happened to me. I got an email from an acquaintance who told me she believed that I was making a mistake signing up for a clinical trial, and that I should be using natural treatments based on diet and supplements such as turmeric and IV vitamin C. She quoted the saying “Let Food be your Medicine”, and pointed me towards the website thetruthaboutcancer (no, I am NOT going to link to that site from my blog, it gets enough traffic). She also told me that I was signing up to be a guinea pig. This blog post has been in the works in my thoughts ever since. I do not think that this good-hearted person is on the right track, and sincerely hope that, for her sake, she never develops cancer and never has to put her alternate treatments to the test. In thinking about what she said, however, I finally crystallized for myself the reaso...
Read more

Knitting Blog: Felted Cat Hat, From Idea to Object

Image
It started with an idea: Ana wanted a felted hat with cat ears to wear on the bitter cold days in Montreal. She made this sketch of what she wanted: It was my job to figure out how to make this idea into something real. The first thing needed was a basic pattern for the shape. A search of different hats on Ravelry yielded Sarah Bradberry's book The Any Yarn, Any Size Hat Book . What a find! It's not a book of patterns as much as a book of formulas. You knit a gauge swatch in the yarn you have on hand to determine what size needles yield the nicest fabric, and measure how many stitches make up an inch. Then, you measure the head you are knitting for to determine the circumference. You plug this data into Bradberry's formulas, and you have a custom pattern. I downloaded the book through Ravelry, and Ana and I chose the basic shape: the Slice of Pi Pillbox. We also found an earflap hat with proportions for adding earflaps. By the way, the selection of hat templates in this boo...
Read more