Aberrant Prose

Short takes 3

Book benefits

Kathy shares books from her book club with me. Right now I am reading a book she brought up in October titled The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. I have to admit it has been a tough read for me (very politically orientated) yet I can’t put it down because of who wrote it. The optimum way to enjoy Obama’s extraordinary prose is with a cup of coffee, this wakes my brain up to better absorb all he has to say and he has a lot to say! Obama is a very inspirational, impressive writer!

Skyping

Yesterday using my new laptop, with its built-in webcam, Robert and I visited the Pines using Skype. So much easier than what we used to do: pull out our camcorder, secure it to the top of our tripod, power up the Mac Mini to use iChat, pull out the remote keyboard and mouse…

We were able to watch Rylan work in an activity book while we talked with Kathy, then later watch him ride his bike on the sidewalk with his friend, Kena. Kathy just carried her laptop with her built-in webcam outside! Aubrey joined the conference after deciding she didn’t want to nap. Much to our delight she bounced around on Kathy’s lap, giggling and smiling during our videoconference.




Bill Cosby live

Last night we were treated to the comedic act of Bill Cosby only thirty minutes from our house! We purchased tickets for this event months ago thus giving us great seats, sixth row, center. Cosby told very funny stories from his younger days and made humorous references to his age and what being 71 translates to in his life. When he appeared on stage everyone stood up and applauded. When he finished his act he received a standing ovation. What an enjoyable night he gave us!




Journal for all time, all ways

With my new laptop come new discoveries. I just discovered how easy it is to save all my journal entries to Rich Text (an entire year or an entire month or an entire week, whatever I select) from Apple’s Mail program. From there I can open them in Text Edit and save as PDFs or as HTML or as Word documents!

I write daily entries, which I email to myself to go into a specially designated directory. This automatically saves each entry on our server. I like to post my journal online so I can get to it from anywhere. This also gives me another layer of backup. I like being able to look up facts and details at any given time like where we had dinner out on a certain day, the name of a flower we planted in our yard, what day Dakota fell in the pool, when I read a specific book…

Previously I saved my entire journal directory to my desktop then posted that file online. Once online all I got was a cryptic mess with no way to search all of them at once since each daily entry had to be opened separately. Since the new mail program doesn’t let me save it in this way anymore I had to figure something else out. Now I put all my entries for one year into one PDF document and can now search an entire year in one sweep!

This newly discovered option has me more willing to take on the challenge of transposing Albert Osborn’s journals, something I have been reluctant to do not knowing what format would survive the evolution of changing technology. I can now post his diaries online without fear of having to retype it all to accommodate future formats Once posted, the rest of the family can access and read them.

Wishzilla.com

Wishzilla.com is a website everyone must check out. It is Chris’ brainchild and recently has gone through an amazing transformation. It is a site that has morphed into something even more useful and intuitive than its predecessor, “the gift box,” an eloquent gift-shopping site like no other.

Unlike other gift shopping sites, which are basically just registries, Wishzilla.com allows people to shop for precisely what a person wants without them even knowing exactly what it is they will receive. People sign up as a group (or a family). Each person lists all the gifts they want (aka wishes) filling out details such as size, color, cost, and where to buy. Others check their list and lock what they want to buy them without them being able to see what is locked. Images and links to websites can easily be incorporated. There is even a cool feature wherein if a user finds a gift they want on a website, while on the website, they can click on a bookmarklet aka Magic Wish Getter to instantly add it to their wish list!

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