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| Links to Notebook Pages: | Technology |
Literature |
Wednesday July 05, 2006 5:00 am Lethbridge Alberta
A. Morning Musings
5:00 am There are a few high clouds this morning. The temperature is +13 C with a forecast high of +32 C and a 40% chance of showers in the afternoon.
I am still able to think of chores that need doing around the house. As soon as an ex-neighbour takes a couple of appliances out of our garage (hopefully today) I will be able to get at my power saw. I would like to build about 4 more book boxes out of 3/4" plywood. These would go under my model train layout and hold my rapidly expanding book collection (now primarily fiction). I should be able to actually make the boxes in a day, but it will take a few days to paint them as it will likely take an undercoat plus 2 coats of enamel paint before they are ready to be used.
We mailed the forms that will set up our new health care insurance. I still need to do this for my Canada pension. I also need to go into the uni this morning to pick up the forms I need to fill in before I take a couple of very old computers in for disk cleaning and recycling.
Now to play with the MacBook for awhile and see if I can get my files from my Dell laptop to my MacBook.
B. Plan
Immediate Chores Take 2 old computers into uni for recycling 1 hr Health Walk & exercise 1 hr Technology Transfer files from Dell laptop to MacBook 2 hr Read manual for MacBook 2 hr Literature Begin reading "A Map of Glass" by Jane Urquhart 1 hr Later Chores Take cement blocks to landfill 2 hr Take stuff to Salvation Army 1 hr Take 5th wheel in for maintenance 2 hr Investigate water softeners for home 2 hr Parge area around rear step to garage 1 hr Build 4 more book boxes Technology Read manual for cell phone 1 hr Transfer music to iPod digital photography try using extender lens and monopod 2 hr Mathematics Larson "Calculus" Read "The Computational Beauty of Nature" Chap 2 1 hr Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles" History Continue reading "Citizens" Watson "Ideas" Model Trains Add blue backdrop to layout 2 hr Review layout for under the table turnouts Wire lower mainline track for a power block Fasten lower mainline track to layout Draw schematic diagram of track layout 2 hr
C. Actual/Notes
5:20 am
Now that I have the MacBook working I need to think seriously about transferring my files from a PC to this machine. There are two parts to this. Some files, such as my Dreamweaver files, I would like to continue to use in a Mac environment. Other files are only possible when I am using Windows xp. In most cases this involves both installing the software on the MacBook while in Windows mode as well as transferring the files that were created with this software. I can think of at least 3 ways to accomplish this:
- burn a CD from the PC and then read it on the MacBook
- ftp the files to a uni server and then ftp them from there to the MacBook
- email the files as an attachment to myself and then read the email with the MacBook.
I think the last option is impractical as it will be both slow and will quickly fill up my quota of space for email.
I like the idea of ftp, but I need to install an ftp program on my Windows environment on the MacBook first.
I finally thought of putting all of my PC files on an external hard drive and then read them with the MacBook. ! This should work with my partitioned external hard drive. It is certainly worth a try. I cannot believe that I didn't think of this first.
7:50 am This has been a good morning. I had previously stored, as backup, all of my documents plus a number of software .exe files on an external hard drive that was formatted for a PC. I was able to read these files with Mac OS X and copy them to the hard drive of the MacBook. This was very quick. I then attached the partitioned hard drive and copied the files to a partition that was formatted for the PC. This was also very fast. I then shut down the MacBook and turned the external hard drive off. I then restarted the MacBook and used Parallels to get into Windows xp. I then turned on the external hard drive and voila, the files were all there and accessible. I tried installing an ftp program that was in my downloads file folder and this worked just fine. I copied all of my files to the Windows c: drive so that I now no longer need to use the external hard drive. Now Parallels should be seamless. But I will need to remember to back up my files once every week or so.
3:00 PM I am back from a quick trip to Chapters to renew my card for another year. The renewal was cheap, but the four books I bought raised the total.
As mentioned, top priority is the first book. I have my yellow highlighter in hand. Now to begin...
- Switching to the Mac. Tiger Edition. The Missing Manual. (2005) by David Pogue & Adam Goldstein. I learned about this book when I googled Macbook and manual. I definitely need a structured introduction to this operating system after 15 years away. This will be my top priority in the next couple of weeks.
- iPhoto5. The Missing Manual. (2005) by David Pogue & Derrick Story. I also need a good introduction to iPhoto and this series receives top marks on the Web.
- Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another. (2004) by Philip Ball. This looks like good fun.
- Classic Feynman. (2006) Edited by Ralph Leighton. I have much of the content of this book from the other books I have by Feynman. The big selling feature was the inclusion of a CD containing a presentation by Feynman. I have yet to see him in action.
D. Reflection