Well, i now have an at-least-mostly-working computer (with a couple of minor issues, but they are ones that should be easily fixable, and i'm in no hurry to fix them, as i can blog and access the internet)...
I did lose quite a few files in the transition to a new hard drive, but i don't think there was anything major that wasn't either backed up or downloaded from somewhere i can easily download it from again.
This computer's currently running Linux (Ubuntu), because i lost my Windows installation CD. I kind of like Ubuntu, but the one thing i really miss from Windows is the software from my digital camera, which doesn't work on non-Windows systems, and the quick and easy photo enhancement tools it had. Ubuntu comes with GIMP, but i haven't learned how to use it yet (and i'm not sure if it has the quick "enhance photo by changing scene balance" thing that the Kodak software has). So, if anyone knows of a simple, user-friendly photo enhancing/organising program for Linux, please let me know...
(I may re-install Windows anyway, as my brother is sending me another Windows installation CD, although i would much prefer, ethically, to stay open-source, i guess if you're not actually paying Microsoft it doesn't matter... sort of reminds me of the "is meat/products of companies like Nestle and Coca-Cola/sweatshop clothing/etc OK to consume if you skip/shoplift it?" debate... ah, anarchist lifestylism ;) )
So, starting in the next couple of days, i will start working through the long list of things i have been intending to blog about, but have been prevented from doing so by all of this computer fuckery...
Showing posts with label technical issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technical issues. Show all posts
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Quick update
Quick update for anyone who may have been worried about me being away (prompted by an email and a phone call):
I got back from the Camp for Climate Action on Monday. I have several blog posts to write based on issues that arose from it (and still a couple more from Autscape, including getting the photos online), but my computer is currently non-functional (right now I am at a friend's house).
I don't know exactly what is wrong with my computer, but after buying a new hard drive (thinking that the problem was a corrupt hard drive caused by a power cut) it still won't work, so i think it must be something else. I am taking it to my brother (who built it for me in the first place, so should know how to fix it) at the weekend, so hopefully i will be up and running again next week.
In the meantime, Climate Camp reportage can be found here...
I got back from the Camp for Climate Action on Monday. I have several blog posts to write based on issues that arose from it (and still a couple more from Autscape, including getting the photos online), but my computer is currently non-functional (right now I am at a friend's house).
I don't know exactly what is wrong with my computer, but after buying a new hard drive (thinking that the problem was a corrupt hard drive caused by a power cut) it still won't work, so i think it must be something else. I am taking it to my brother (who built it for me in the first place, so should know how to fix it) at the weekend, so hopefully i will be up and running again next week.
In the meantime, Climate Camp reportage can be found here...
Monday, August 4, 2008
Incomplete write-up of Autscape
This isn't the post i wanted it to be, because what was supposed to be a relaxed few days in between Autscape and the Climate Camp was somewht ruined by my computer crashing completely, and me spending £50 on a new hard drive, only to have something else go wrong (i don't know what, presumably a hardware tihng) and for it to work for a day, and then become unable even to turn on. :( (I am now at a friend's house, typing this on his incredibly sticky keyboard, hence the many typos...)
So, the well-thought-out write-up of my Autscape experience hasn't happened, and of necessity won't happen for another couple of weeks, as i'm off to Climate Camp tomorrow... but I wanted to write a bit about it while it was still fairly fresh in my mind...
I had built my expectations up for being around a large number of autistic people, and in a majority-autistic environment for the first time, to be a very emotional, possibly even overwhelming experience. Actually, it wasn't that great a leap - in fact, the thing that struck me most strongly about it was how easy it felt to interact with the rest of the people there, and how "naturally" it felt like i fitted among them - people didn't mind me not looking at them while talking to them, not necessarily feeling like talking to them every time i passed by them, etc, and it was incredibly quick and easy to just fall into that, because it felt, well, natural to my own nature - which i don't often get in the mainstream world...
I definitely felt more able to do "autistc things" like rocking, other stimmy movements, etc - to feel able to rock in public without embarrassment was definitely a big thing (in fact, i felt positively encouraged to do so). I think the experience was definitely a positive one in terms of feeling able to be my autistic self, without apology and without compromise, and probably gave me more cofidence to be "out" in future social situations (although the whole "passing" thing is still, and probably always will be, a problematic area for me). Talking to people in a context where autism-specific things could simply be referred to without further explanation, rather than having to be given a whole conversation just to explain them, was also really good, and quite liberating (it made me realise just how easy it is when talking to non-autistic people, even when the non-autistic people in question are good friends, to feel the need to be a "self-narrating zoo exhibit")...
There was definitely something about other autistic people that made them easier even than non-autistic disabled people (who make up the majority of my "real life" friends) to relate to and communicate with, even if i didn't get time to explore that as far as i wanted to, and it made it very easy for me to think of them, on a very personal level, as "my people", even though on a political level i still prefer to think of all oppressed peoples as "my people". It made me think a lot about the need for both (impairment-specific) "autistic community" and a wider "disability community", and whether a stronger identification with either one weakens one's membership of the other. (I think it doesn't necessarily, but that "juggling" them is still an issue of importance in my life...)
I think i had a sort of "delayed response" after coming back from Autscae into the "NT world", when i was struck by just how overwhelmingly noisy, crowded, etc it was, and by how much greater my anxiety levels were walking aroud Birminham than they were at Autscape - although, of course, that was probably also partly down to the objctive difference between a city like Birmingham and a rural area like the Yorkshire Dales, as well as being exacerbated by the stress of all the shit with my computer.
Te Yorkshire Dales scenery was incredibly beautiful, and made me really want to go back there (almost as soon as i got back, i called a friend who, like myself, had memories of visiting that area as a kid, and suggested going on a hiking holiday there next year). I took loads of photos, but due to nt having a functional computer to upload them to, posting them here will have to wait... :(
(edit: Katja, another of the presenters, took some photos that can be seen here)
I don't know quite how representative of autistic people as a whole the people who came to Autscape were - my first impression was that it was dominated by people who fit reasonaly well the very verbal, "geeky Aspie" stereotype (which very much includes myself), and that it would have been good to have some more people who looked more like the supposed "lower-functioning end" of the spetrum (note that i don't think "end of the spectrum" is actually a meaningful phrase, as i don't think that "the autistic spectrum" (which, of course, is a metaphor) is literally a unilinear thing like the electromagnetic spectrum, but i'm using the phrase stereotypically), and, in fact, on the first night i felt no different from how i would have felt among a crowd of fairly geeky NTs (it felt much like being at university, actually)... but, as it went on, i noticed that many people, including myself, showed their "autistic mannerisms" more, which made me think abut just how much i do, even subconsciously, in order to "blend in" to the mainsream world (without actually even having the intention to "blend in", but just semi-automatically acting like the people around me, perhaps picking up NT-ish mannerisms in a mostly-NT environment and autistic mannerisms in a mostly-autistic environment in the same way that i tend to pick up the accent and vocabulary of whoever i'm speakng to)...
Of course, apart from those who, like myself, were presenters and got their fees paid for them, everyone there was able to pay at least £155 to go to Autscape (not couting travel costs), which probably in itself made them not demographically representative of autistic people in the UK (and probaly even less so for those who travelled to Autscape from abroad - there were people there from the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Israel and probably other countries i can't remember - the people with US and Canadian accents were, ithink, currently living in the UK, tho some people talked about also having gone to Autreat in the US).
The venue could have been a lot more physically accessible, but the organisers did everyuthing within their power to improve access - unfortunately, there wasn't really anything that could be done about the actual buildings, or the long distances and steep slopes between them. It did piss me off that one friend and activist (who is both autistic and physically impaired) was unable to come because of insufficient accessibility, tho, and a couple of other people who had "hidden" physical impairments in addition to autism tld me that they did less than they wanted to because of the long uphill walk between the accomodation and the presentation room. AFAIK, it's not yet known whether Autscape will be in the same or a different venue next year...
The presentations i saw (other than my own) were all highly interesting, although i didn't get to see all the ones i wanted to beause of my own disorganisation. I missed the first half of the introductory one on inertia, but the second half had a lot of very relevant-to-my-life stuff in it (probably the subject of future posts). The LARM-UK and Autreach presentation also made me feel very inspired about the growth of autism rights activism in the UK, and contacts made as a result of that presentation and my preesntation may start a regularly meeting autism/neurodiversity group in my area. Alexis, who was giving the LARM presentation, showed this video, made by a 12 year old "non-verbal" autistic kid, which made me cry (in a good way) :)
I probably didn't have quite as many conversations about personal experience (of the "compare-contrast-empathise" kind) as i expected/wanted to, but i did have some good ones, as well as very inspiring ones about more political issues, including gender identity and sexuality as well as disability rights. Particularly interesting was the conversation about polyamory with a couple, both on the spectrum and one a trans woman, who were also in a network of poly relationships - i am going to try to write up my own thoughts abut polyamory fairly soon, but i definitely feel that it provides a very powerful framework for thinking about gender/sexual liberation, and has some particular insights for disability and relationships too...
I definitely want to keep in touch with several of the people i met there. It makes me really happy that i actually seem to be succeeding at putting people with similar or overlapping concerns and identities in touch with each other at the moment... :)
Anyway, this is nowhere near complete, but i have to go home and pack for tomorrow (and typing on this keyboard is making it really hard to be coherent, because it's so sticky and slow). I will blog about the Camp for Climate Action when i return from it (and for my posts from it last year, see the relevant category, and for a short video about last year's camp from someone who was also at Autscape, see here)...
So, the well-thought-out write-up of my Autscape experience hasn't happened, and of necessity won't happen for another couple of weeks, as i'm off to Climate Camp tomorrow... but I wanted to write a bit about it while it was still fairly fresh in my mind...
I had built my expectations up for being around a large number of autistic people, and in a majority-autistic environment for the first time, to be a very emotional, possibly even overwhelming experience. Actually, it wasn't that great a leap - in fact, the thing that struck me most strongly about it was how easy it felt to interact with the rest of the people there, and how "naturally" it felt like i fitted among them - people didn't mind me not looking at them while talking to them, not necessarily feeling like talking to them every time i passed by them, etc, and it was incredibly quick and easy to just fall into that, because it felt, well, natural to my own nature - which i don't often get in the mainstream world...
I definitely felt more able to do "autistc things" like rocking, other stimmy movements, etc - to feel able to rock in public without embarrassment was definitely a big thing (in fact, i felt positively encouraged to do so). I think the experience was definitely a positive one in terms of feeling able to be my autistic self, without apology and without compromise, and probably gave me more cofidence to be "out" in future social situations (although the whole "passing" thing is still, and probably always will be, a problematic area for me). Talking to people in a context where autism-specific things could simply be referred to without further explanation, rather than having to be given a whole conversation just to explain them, was also really good, and quite liberating (it made me realise just how easy it is when talking to non-autistic people, even when the non-autistic people in question are good friends, to feel the need to be a "self-narrating zoo exhibit")...
There was definitely something about other autistic people that made them easier even than non-autistic disabled people (who make up the majority of my "real life" friends) to relate to and communicate with, even if i didn't get time to explore that as far as i wanted to, and it made it very easy for me to think of them, on a very personal level, as "my people", even though on a political level i still prefer to think of all oppressed peoples as "my people". It made me think a lot about the need for both (impairment-specific) "autistic community" and a wider "disability community", and whether a stronger identification with either one weakens one's membership of the other. (I think it doesn't necessarily, but that "juggling" them is still an issue of importance in my life...)
I think i had a sort of "delayed response" after coming back from Autscae into the "NT world", when i was struck by just how overwhelmingly noisy, crowded, etc it was, and by how much greater my anxiety levels were walking aroud Birminham than they were at Autscape - although, of course, that was probably also partly down to the objctive difference between a city like Birmingham and a rural area like the Yorkshire Dales, as well as being exacerbated by the stress of all the shit with my computer.
Te Yorkshire Dales scenery was incredibly beautiful, and made me really want to go back there (almost as soon as i got back, i called a friend who, like myself, had memories of visiting that area as a kid, and suggested going on a hiking holiday there next year). I took loads of photos, but due to nt having a functional computer to upload them to, posting them here will have to wait... :(
(edit: Katja, another of the presenters, took some photos that can be seen here)
I don't know quite how representative of autistic people as a whole the people who came to Autscape were - my first impression was that it was dominated by people who fit reasonaly well the very verbal, "geeky Aspie" stereotype (which very much includes myself), and that it would have been good to have some more people who looked more like the supposed "lower-functioning end" of the spetrum (note that i don't think "end of the spectrum" is actually a meaningful phrase, as i don't think that "the autistic spectrum" (which, of course, is a metaphor) is literally a unilinear thing like the electromagnetic spectrum, but i'm using the phrase stereotypically), and, in fact, on the first night i felt no different from how i would have felt among a crowd of fairly geeky NTs (it felt much like being at university, actually)... but, as it went on, i noticed that many people, including myself, showed their "autistic mannerisms" more, which made me think abut just how much i do, even subconsciously, in order to "blend in" to the mainsream world (without actually even having the intention to "blend in", but just semi-automatically acting like the people around me, perhaps picking up NT-ish mannerisms in a mostly-NT environment and autistic mannerisms in a mostly-autistic environment in the same way that i tend to pick up the accent and vocabulary of whoever i'm speakng to)...
Of course, apart from those who, like myself, were presenters and got their fees paid for them, everyone there was able to pay at least £155 to go to Autscape (not couting travel costs), which probably in itself made them not demographically representative of autistic people in the UK (and probaly even less so for those who travelled to Autscape from abroad - there were people there from the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Israel and probably other countries i can't remember - the people with US and Canadian accents were, ithink, currently living in the UK, tho some people talked about also having gone to Autreat in the US).
The venue could have been a lot more physically accessible, but the organisers did everyuthing within their power to improve access - unfortunately, there wasn't really anything that could be done about the actual buildings, or the long distances and steep slopes between them. It did piss me off that one friend and activist (who is both autistic and physically impaired) was unable to come because of insufficient accessibility, tho, and a couple of other people who had "hidden" physical impairments in addition to autism tld me that they did less than they wanted to because of the long uphill walk between the accomodation and the presentation room. AFAIK, it's not yet known whether Autscape will be in the same or a different venue next year...
The presentations i saw (other than my own) were all highly interesting, although i didn't get to see all the ones i wanted to beause of my own disorganisation. I missed the first half of the introductory one on inertia, but the second half had a lot of very relevant-to-my-life stuff in it (probably the subject of future posts). The LARM-UK and Autreach presentation also made me feel very inspired about the growth of autism rights activism in the UK, and contacts made as a result of that presentation and my preesntation may start a regularly meeting autism/neurodiversity group in my area. Alexis, who was giving the LARM presentation, showed this video, made by a 12 year old "non-verbal" autistic kid, which made me cry (in a good way) :)
I probably didn't have quite as many conversations about personal experience (of the "compare-contrast-empathise" kind) as i expected/wanted to, but i did have some good ones, as well as very inspiring ones about more political issues, including gender identity and sexuality as well as disability rights. Particularly interesting was the conversation about polyamory with a couple, both on the spectrum and one a trans woman, who were also in a network of poly relationships - i am going to try to write up my own thoughts abut polyamory fairly soon, but i definitely feel that it provides a very powerful framework for thinking about gender/sexual liberation, and has some particular insights for disability and relationships too...
I definitely want to keep in touch with several of the people i met there. It makes me really happy that i actually seem to be succeeding at putting people with similar or overlapping concerns and identities in touch with each other at the moment... :)
Anyway, this is nowhere near complete, but i have to go home and pack for tomorrow (and typing on this keyboard is making it really hard to be coherent, because it's so sticky and slow). I will blog about the Camp for Climate Action when i return from it (and for my posts from it last year, see the relevant category, and for a short video about last year's camp from someone who was also at Autscape, see here)...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Weird shit is happening with my computer.
OK, so some time last week, because i was in a hurry to leave the house and thought i had shut it down already, i accidentally turned my computer (along with all my electrical stuff) off at the mains without shutting it down first.
Since then, every time i start up my computer it comes up with a blue screen saying "One of your discs* needs to be checked for consistency... you can cancel the disc checking, but it is strongly recommended", and giving me a countdown of 10 seconds to cancel disk* checking.
If i allow the 10 seconds to count down, the blue screen then fills up with the line "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25", with the bottom line flashing, and... stays like that (i've tried leaving it for about an hour). The only thing i can do to get it off that screen is to press the restart button (thankfully, my PC, unlike some, actually has one).
If i press a key within the 10 seconds to cancel the disk checking, Windows boots up as normal, but i get a series of dialog boxes saying "The file or directory C:\$Extend\$ObjId is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the Chkdsk utility."
Apparently, if Windows's search function is to be believed, there is no such file or directory as $Extend or $ObjId on my computer. I searched for and found the Chkdsk utility, and ran it, which resulted in it saying the same "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25" line, but saying it was 1% counting up to 100% completed. I thought this might have resolved the problem, but apparently not, as the same happens again every time i turn my computer on.
Also, every time i start Firefox, it gives me the "Restore previous session" dialog box, asking me if i want to restore the tabs from my "last" session, which are the tabs i had open when i accidentally turned my computer off without shutting down.
And i seem to be unable to download anything from a web page, including email attachments - if i try to open rather than save an attached document, a box comes up saying the document cannot be saved because i "cannot change the contents" of my Temp folder, and to "change the folder properties and try again [which i have no idea how to do], or try saving in a different location." If i try to save rather than open, and select a location to save it in, the same happens with that folder...
(Trying to save an image from a web page by right-clicking and selecting "Save Image" seems to do... absolutely nothing.)
Also possibly but not definitely related:
- I keep getting a pop-up saying a Firefox update needs to be installed, about 10 minutes after every time i start Firefox. Whether i click "Restart Firefox Now", or "Later" (which gets the reply "The update will be installed the next time you strt Firefox", the same happens next time.
- I keep getting a pop-up from my Windows toolbar saying "General error - not enough free memory, write error".
- Pages containing QuickTime media seem to crash Firefox every time i go to them, giving me the "Firefox has encountered an error and needs to close" message.
Obviously, as i can still get onto the internet, this isn't anywhere near as bad as the last time my computer fucked up (which involved me having to take it back to my brother (who built it for me, but lives about 100 miles away) and do a complete backup and reinstall, which involved transferring all my files to another hard drive, which i neither have nor know how to do... but it's still pretty annoying, especially when i get an email with an attachment i can't access, or Firefox crashes with 12 tabs open and then, when i start it again, reopens the tabs from that "last" session instead of the actual last session... and, as i want to get into image editing, i very much want to be able to download images from the web...
I'm using Windows XP.
Any ideas for what went wrong/what i can do? (I really, really don't want to have to reinstall Windows again...)
*Both spellings of this word ("disc" and "disk") look wrong to me. This is one of my weird spelling blind spots...
Since then, every time i start up my computer it comes up with a blue screen saying "One of your discs* needs to be checked for consistency... you can cancel the disc checking, but it is strongly recommended", and giving me a countdown of 10 seconds to cancel disk* checking.
If i allow the 10 seconds to count down, the blue screen then fills up with the line "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25", with the bottom line flashing, and... stays like that (i've tried leaving it for about an hour). The only thing i can do to get it off that screen is to press the restart button (thankfully, my PC, unlike some, actually has one).
If i press a key within the 10 seconds to cancel the disk checking, Windows boots up as normal, but i get a series of dialog boxes saying "The file or directory C:\$Extend\$ObjId is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the Chkdsk utility."
Apparently, if Windows's search function is to be believed, there is no such file or directory as $Extend or $ObjId on my computer. I searched for and found the Chkdsk utility, and ran it, which resulted in it saying the same "Inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25" line, but saying it was 1% counting up to 100% completed. I thought this might have resolved the problem, but apparently not, as the same happens again every time i turn my computer on.
Also, every time i start Firefox, it gives me the "Restore previous session" dialog box, asking me if i want to restore the tabs from my "last" session, which are the tabs i had open when i accidentally turned my computer off without shutting down.
And i seem to be unable to download anything from a web page, including email attachments - if i try to open rather than save an attached document, a box comes up saying the document cannot be saved because i "cannot change the contents" of my Temp folder, and to "change the folder properties and try again [which i have no idea how to do], or try saving in a different location." If i try to save rather than open, and select a location to save it in, the same happens with that folder...
(Trying to save an image from a web page by right-clicking and selecting "Save Image" seems to do... absolutely nothing.)
Also possibly but not definitely related:
- I keep getting a pop-up saying a Firefox update needs to be installed, about 10 minutes after every time i start Firefox. Whether i click "Restart Firefox Now", or "Later" (which gets the reply "The update will be installed the next time you strt Firefox", the same happens next time.
- I keep getting a pop-up from my Windows toolbar saying "General error - not enough free memory, write error".
- Pages containing QuickTime media seem to crash Firefox every time i go to them, giving me the "Firefox has encountered an error and needs to close" message.
Obviously, as i can still get onto the internet, this isn't anywhere near as bad as the last time my computer fucked up (which involved me having to take it back to my brother (who built it for me, but lives about 100 miles away) and do a complete backup and reinstall, which involved transferring all my files to another hard drive, which i neither have nor know how to do... but it's still pretty annoying, especially when i get an email with an attachment i can't access, or Firefox crashes with 12 tabs open and then, when i start it again, reopens the tabs from that "last" session instead of the actual last session... and, as i want to get into image editing, i very much want to be able to download images from the web...
I'm using Windows XP.
Any ideas for what went wrong/what i can do? (I really, really don't want to have to reinstall Windows again...)
*Both spellings of this word ("disc" and "disk") look wrong to me. This is one of my weird spelling blind spots...
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Finally properly online again...
Apologies for the lack of posting over the last month or so (to anyone who actually reads this blog)...
I *thought* i would be doing a post like this approximately a month ago, but unfortunately, just after i had finally managed to get internet set up in my new flat (majorly stressing myself out and using up ridiculous amounts of phone credit in the process), major software fuckups happened and i had to reinstall Windows... for which i had to get my brother to send me a copy of Windows in the post... which got lost in the post and never arrived, so he had to send it again... and which, when it finally arrived, crashed mid-install due to unidentifiable hardware issues, which necessitated me taking my computer to his house so he could take it apart and work out what the problem was (it turned out to be a cable, of all things, connected to the floppy drive)... but now, my computer finally has a functioning operating system on it again...
(I'm seriously considering switching to Linux, as soon as i get a bit more computer literate...)
So, yeah. The many posts which it had been my intent to write in the last few weeks will, hopefully, start to appear within the next week - and sorry to anyone who i told that particular posts would get posted (particularly E, who i was talking to on the phone about how great it was to have internet again, ironically on the very day that my Windows was to fuck up)...
I'm also intending to make a few changes to this blog, altho i'm not exactly sure what yet. I've had a couple of people say to me that white-on-black isn't the most accessible colour scheme from a visual impairment point of view, so i'm going to look into what others might be preferable (if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know) - altho this was about the only one i could find, within Blogger's available options, that didn't look horrible to me, so there might be some experimentation involved... i'm thinking of doing a bit of rearranging of my links and blogroll, too, tho again, i'm not exactly sure how, and might end up returning to how it was originally...
I'm also probably going to start using my Livejournal account more, in particular for posts on more trivial/geeky stuff that doesn't feel to me like it "fits" here (squeeing about TV shows or webcomics, for example) and/or thoughts that are too "unformed" for me to feel like i can make a "proper" post out of them (the latter of which might end up being reworked into "better" posts for this blog).
I need to decide whether i want this blog to be primarily just for the disability/politics/gender identity/sexuality type stuff, or whether my posts on other stuff, such as wildlife and the environment (which i've planned a few of, but then not posted them here, because those posts i have done on that kind of stuff haven't attracted any comments, and i haven't felt very able to articulately tie the disparate subjects together, like my original intent for this blog was) can also go here, or whether they should be split off into another blog (i only wanted one, and now i already have 3, including the music reviews one)...
I'd also really like to find a way of getting more comments/discussion on this blog, but i'm really not sure how to do that...
Anyway. Hopefully, more content coming soon...
I *thought* i would be doing a post like this approximately a month ago, but unfortunately, just after i had finally managed to get internet set up in my new flat (majorly stressing myself out and using up ridiculous amounts of phone credit in the process), major software fuckups happened and i had to reinstall Windows... for which i had to get my brother to send me a copy of Windows in the post... which got lost in the post and never arrived, so he had to send it again... and which, when it finally arrived, crashed mid-install due to unidentifiable hardware issues, which necessitated me taking my computer to his house so he could take it apart and work out what the problem was (it turned out to be a cable, of all things, connected to the floppy drive)... but now, my computer finally has a functioning operating system on it again...
(I'm seriously considering switching to Linux, as soon as i get a bit more computer literate...)
So, yeah. The many posts which it had been my intent to write in the last few weeks will, hopefully, start to appear within the next week - and sorry to anyone who i told that particular posts would get posted (particularly E, who i was talking to on the phone about how great it was to have internet again, ironically on the very day that my Windows was to fuck up)...
I'm also intending to make a few changes to this blog, altho i'm not exactly sure what yet. I've had a couple of people say to me that white-on-black isn't the most accessible colour scheme from a visual impairment point of view, so i'm going to look into what others might be preferable (if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know) - altho this was about the only one i could find, within Blogger's available options, that didn't look horrible to me, so there might be some experimentation involved... i'm thinking of doing a bit of rearranging of my links and blogroll, too, tho again, i'm not exactly sure how, and might end up returning to how it was originally...
I'm also probably going to start using my Livejournal account more, in particular for posts on more trivial/geeky stuff that doesn't feel to me like it "fits" here (squeeing about TV shows or webcomics, for example) and/or thoughts that are too "unformed" for me to feel like i can make a "proper" post out of them (the latter of which might end up being reworked into "better" posts for this blog).
I need to decide whether i want this blog to be primarily just for the disability/politics/gender identity/sexuality type stuff, or whether my posts on other stuff, such as wildlife and the environment (which i've planned a few of, but then not posted them here, because those posts i have done on that kind of stuff haven't attracted any comments, and i haven't felt very able to articulately tie the disparate subjects together, like my original intent for this blog was) can also go here, or whether they should be split off into another blog (i only wanted one, and now i already have 3, including the music reviews one)...
I'd also really like to find a way of getting more comments/discussion on this blog, but i'm really not sure how to do that...
Anyway. Hopefully, more content coming soon...
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Technical issues prevent update...
I have a shitload of things to blog about, but for several reasons they're going to have to wait for a while...
Firstly, i came back from spending the weekend helping to run a temporary social centre (on which i will, hopefully, eventually report) to find that my hard drive had, apparently, died (first telling me, when trying to boot up, that there was some sort of error on drive C, and then not even getting to that stage, but stopping in the middle of a line of the stuff that briefly flashes up before the Windows loading screen appears). That hard drive contained all the photos I have ever taken with my digital camera (of which i have no backups), a fair amount of downloaded music that i don't have on CD, and several unfinished or nearly-finished blog posts. :(
I'm currently using a temporary computer for internet access, but am also incredibly busy at the moment as i'm in the process of moving house, and will need to get internet set up in the new place, which might be somewhat complicated, as i might not be able to get it in my own name due to financial history. As i have to be out of this house by the end of April (tho i'd prefer sooner), i probably won't have it properly set up until some time in May.
(I am getting a new computer, which my brother has given me, for the new house, but won't actually have it until i've moved in. Still, it's a strange coincidence that my old computer chose to die almost as soon as i was given a new one... i just hope that, when i go to see my brother next weekend (his birthday is the day after mine, the 27th and 26th respectfully), he being the computer expert that he is will be able to recover the data from my old hard drive and transfer it onto the new one... ie, i'm hoping that it's just some Windows files that have been damaged by whatever disk corruption happened, and My Documents is still salvageable...)
Lastcrazyhorn gave me a blog award, which requires me to pass it on to 10 other blogs, which i will do as soon as i manage to get enough time to think of who to pick and why... but a big thankyou for picking me, and i will pass it on when i get the chance to... :)
I'm also thinking about possibly changing the look of my blog - among other things, i'm not happy with how narrow the column of text appears when viewed on larger monitors (which i didn't realise while using my old computer, which has a small, old, crappy one), and a visually impaired friend who uses screen-enlarging software told me she found it hard to read because white text on black "dazzles" her. (I chose the white-on-black template because i had heard that light-on-dark is easier for VI accessibility, but some people on Ouch have complained about the light-on-dark colour scheme there recently, so i presume that that info, wherever it came from, is false...) I'm not sure, however, what i want to change it *to*, so suggestions welcome...
Anyway, i'm off to London tomorrow for what might be the first major disability-themed direct action in the UK for several years... and which, hopefully, i'll be able to report on... and i will be posting "proper" blog posts (a substantial backlog, if i get my data back) as soon as i can...
Firstly, i came back from spending the weekend helping to run a temporary social centre (on which i will, hopefully, eventually report) to find that my hard drive had, apparently, died (first telling me, when trying to boot up, that there was some sort of error on drive C, and then not even getting to that stage, but stopping in the middle of a line of the stuff that briefly flashes up before the Windows loading screen appears). That hard drive contained all the photos I have ever taken with my digital camera (of which i have no backups), a fair amount of downloaded music that i don't have on CD, and several unfinished or nearly-finished blog posts. :(
I'm currently using a temporary computer for internet access, but am also incredibly busy at the moment as i'm in the process of moving house, and will need to get internet set up in the new place, which might be somewhat complicated, as i might not be able to get it in my own name due to financial history. As i have to be out of this house by the end of April (tho i'd prefer sooner), i probably won't have it properly set up until some time in May.
(I am getting a new computer, which my brother has given me, for the new house, but won't actually have it until i've moved in. Still, it's a strange coincidence that my old computer chose to die almost as soon as i was given a new one... i just hope that, when i go to see my brother next weekend (his birthday is the day after mine, the 27th and 26th respectfully), he being the computer expert that he is will be able to recover the data from my old hard drive and transfer it onto the new one... ie, i'm hoping that it's just some Windows files that have been damaged by whatever disk corruption happened, and My Documents is still salvageable...)
Lastcrazyhorn gave me a blog award, which requires me to pass it on to 10 other blogs, which i will do as soon as i manage to get enough time to think of who to pick and why... but a big thankyou for picking me, and i will pass it on when i get the chance to... :)
I'm also thinking about possibly changing the look of my blog - among other things, i'm not happy with how narrow the column of text appears when viewed on larger monitors (which i didn't realise while using my old computer, which has a small, old, crappy one), and a visually impaired friend who uses screen-enlarging software told me she found it hard to read because white text on black "dazzles" her. (I chose the white-on-black template because i had heard that light-on-dark is easier for VI accessibility, but some people on Ouch have complained about the light-on-dark colour scheme there recently, so i presume that that info, wherever it came from, is false...) I'm not sure, however, what i want to change it *to*, so suggestions welcome...
Anyway, i'm off to London tomorrow for what might be the first major disability-themed direct action in the UK for several years... and which, hopefully, i'll be able to report on... and i will be posting "proper" blog posts (a substantial backlog, if i get my data back) as soon as i can...
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Rearranging my blogroll
Weirdly, i feel like it would be somehow unethical to rearrange my blogroll (in any way other than simply adding more blogs to it) without posting to let people know about it (even tho i'm sure practically none of the people whose blogs i link to actually read my blog, anyway - Stacey and Elizabeth being the honourable exceptions)... anyway, i've decided to remove a few blogs that haven't been posted to in ages, add a couple of others, and move a couple of others around...
I was going to remove And Stimming With Rainbows Of Every Design, despite its awesome title, because Danechi hadn't posted since July, but she posted to say she was going to start blogging again, so i'm now keeping it. Ditto Larry Arnold aka Laurentius Rex, who has started blogging again (actually, i was probably going to keep him anyway, because i know him IRL, but anyway), and Kassiane aka The Rett Devil.
I think i'm going to keep Bogle's Critical Thoughts, even though he hasn't posted in a while, because there's some really good critical stuff on there that i need to but still haven't got round to responding to.
I am, however, removing DarkDaughta and Mighty Quare Dewd because, even tho both of them are really good writers, both their blogs tend to crash or confuse my computer almost every time i try to look at them, and therefore i don't really actually read them. I might put them back if/when i ever get a better computer that's capable of handling graphics-heavy pages...
Disability Is Beautiful hasdn't been posted on since September, and seems kind of dead. Likewise Fit Of Pique, which hasn't been posted on since April, which in fact is before i started this blog (and i think the reasons might be to do with the author transitioning away from the identity under which ze wrote it)... so, for now at least, i'm removing them...
Eminism is leaving the blogs section of my link list because a) i also have a link there in my "(Trans)gender" section and duplicating the link seems a bit pointless, what with all my link lists getting gradually longer and longer, and b) it's less a blog and more a website, really (especially with the "technical difficulties" on the blog bit). Please do go there, though, as everything there is awesome :)
I've recently added Last Crazy Horn, and i'm adding SexAbility (which i can't remember why i didn't add before, as i've been reading it for ages).
I'm also adding lilwatchergirl's blog, Through Myself And Back Again, because she does read my blog, and we may (all things permitting) be doing the same MA course next year...
All the rest are staying where they are, for now...
I'm also considering whether to get a LiveJournal account, just because i want to comment on nearly every post by both Trinity and chaoticidealism, but can't because only people with LiveJournals can post on them. Trinity has a Blogger account for the equivalent-but-opposite purpose, but i'm not sure if LiveJournal would allow something similar. Dunno...
Proper blog posts coming. I have a couple that i've been working on but got delayed in finishing and posting...
I was going to remove And Stimming With Rainbows Of Every Design, despite its awesome title, because Danechi hadn't posted since July, but she posted to say she was going to start blogging again, so i'm now keeping it. Ditto Larry Arnold aka Laurentius Rex, who has started blogging again (actually, i was probably going to keep him anyway, because i know him IRL, but anyway), and Kassiane aka The Rett Devil.
I think i'm going to keep Bogle's Critical Thoughts, even though he hasn't posted in a while, because there's some really good critical stuff on there that i need to but still haven't got round to responding to.
I am, however, removing DarkDaughta and Mighty Quare Dewd because, even tho both of them are really good writers, both their blogs tend to crash or confuse my computer almost every time i try to look at them, and therefore i don't really actually read them. I might put them back if/when i ever get a better computer that's capable of handling graphics-heavy pages...
Disability Is Beautiful hasdn't been posted on since September, and seems kind of dead. Likewise Fit Of Pique, which hasn't been posted on since April, which in fact is before i started this blog (and i think the reasons might be to do with the author transitioning away from the identity under which ze wrote it)... so, for now at least, i'm removing them...
Eminism is leaving the blogs section of my link list because a) i also have a link there in my "(Trans)gender" section and duplicating the link seems a bit pointless, what with all my link lists getting gradually longer and longer, and b) it's less a blog and more a website, really (especially with the "technical difficulties" on the blog bit). Please do go there, though, as everything there is awesome :)
I've recently added Last Crazy Horn, and i'm adding SexAbility (which i can't remember why i didn't add before, as i've been reading it for ages).
I'm also adding lilwatchergirl's blog, Through Myself And Back Again, because she does read my blog, and we may (all things permitting) be doing the same MA course next year...
All the rest are staying where they are, for now...
I'm also considering whether to get a LiveJournal account, just because i want to comment on nearly every post by both Trinity and chaoticidealism, but can't because only people with LiveJournals can post on them. Trinity has a Blogger account for the equivalent-but-opposite purpose, but i'm not sure if LiveJournal would allow something similar. Dunno...
Proper blog posts coming. I have a couple that i've been working on but got delayed in finishing and posting...
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Very strange
I just accidentally typed the URL of this blog into my browser with commas instead of dots, and what appeared on my screen was this... which, being a list of autistic pride links, is a cool thing, but i'm completely mystified as to how a mis-typed version of my blog's URL got me there...
(It took me a couple of minutes to realise that i'd actually typed commas instead of dots, during which time i thought someone else might somehow have "hijacked" my blog's URL...)
Anyone have any idea how and why this happened?
(It took me a couple of minutes to realise that i'd actually typed commas instead of dots, during which time i thought someone else might somehow have "hijacked" my blog's URL...)
Anyone have any idea how and why this happened?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Bizarre spam comments, and reasons for not posting.
OK, i have now enabled comment moderation, because 2 of my posts have attracted... extremely odd spam(?) comments, from someone who likes to write dissertation length rants attacking every race and religion imaginable, telling everyone that they need to become asexual, and going on about (plural, non-specific) "gods" and "the disfavored" a lot. I don't know whether anyone else has been targeted by this individual, but hir comments were not just nonsensical and offensive to... pretty much the entire population of the world, really, but so long that my computer very nearly crashed when trying to load the comment pages in order for me to be able to delete them.
(OK, so my computer crashes/freezes/does inexplicable things pretty much all the time, being about 10 years old and with nowhere near enough RAM or hard drive space to be even able to handle broadband internet, really... which is one reason why i'm on Blogspot, and not Livejournal, because LJ pages seem to be so data heavy that they can cause freezes from trying to load them. Which sucks, because there are several awesome blogs on Livejournal, and i'd like to be able to comment on them. Why i'm on Blogspot and not on WordPress is another question entirely, and one i'm increasingly not finding any acceptable answer to... maybe i'll move to WordPress eventually, but i think i need a bit more tech knowledge first. Anyway, this parenthetical paragraph has got far too rambly...)
The thing is, i'm not 100% sure exactly how comment moderation works. I'd like people to be able to post comments on my blog without having to wait for approval, just as they could before comment moderation was enabled, but i'd also like to be able to delete gigantic, nonsensical spam comments. However, there seems to be no way to enable deleting comments without comment moderation...
I'd also like comments to appear underneath the post when you click on the "n comments" link, rather than going to a comment page that doesn't include the original post. I don't know if that's possible without sacrificing the ability to delete comments, tho...
If anyone knows exactly how comment moderation works, and/or if it's possible for me to have the combination of features i want, please let me know. Unfortunately, i don't know exactly what will happen to your replies if you post them as comments to this post...
Also... i said in the title of this entry "reasons for not posting", but i don't think i have the energy to actually go into those reasons right now. Suffice to say, i have an ever-growing list of stuff i want to write blog posts about, and quite a few that i intended to post in the last few days, but some shit has been happening in my life that has been leaving me extremely stressed and without the kind of levels of concentration or rational thought necessary for coherent writing, or the faith in my own ability to understand or justify anything to allow me to write it. However, this stuff is hopefully short term, and going to be resolved, and when it's resolved i'll probably post about it. My mind is in too much of a state of flux for me to feel able to post about it before it gets resolved, tho...
Anyway, i'm gathering some determination to work through the above shit and write some posts on unrelated issues in the next couple of days or so...
(OK, so my computer crashes/freezes/does inexplicable things pretty much all the time, being about 10 years old and with nowhere near enough RAM or hard drive space to be even able to handle broadband internet, really... which is one reason why i'm on Blogspot, and not Livejournal, because LJ pages seem to be so data heavy that they can cause freezes from trying to load them. Which sucks, because there are several awesome blogs on Livejournal, and i'd like to be able to comment on them. Why i'm on Blogspot and not on WordPress is another question entirely, and one i'm increasingly not finding any acceptable answer to... maybe i'll move to WordPress eventually, but i think i need a bit more tech knowledge first. Anyway, this parenthetical paragraph has got far too rambly...)
The thing is, i'm not 100% sure exactly how comment moderation works. I'd like people to be able to post comments on my blog without having to wait for approval, just as they could before comment moderation was enabled, but i'd also like to be able to delete gigantic, nonsensical spam comments. However, there seems to be no way to enable deleting comments without comment moderation...
I'd also like comments to appear underneath the post when you click on the "n comments" link, rather than going to a comment page that doesn't include the original post. I don't know if that's possible without sacrificing the ability to delete comments, tho...
If anyone knows exactly how comment moderation works, and/or if it's possible for me to have the combination of features i want, please let me know. Unfortunately, i don't know exactly what will happen to your replies if you post them as comments to this post...
Also... i said in the title of this entry "reasons for not posting", but i don't think i have the energy to actually go into those reasons right now. Suffice to say, i have an ever-growing list of stuff i want to write blog posts about, and quite a few that i intended to post in the last few days, but some shit has been happening in my life that has been leaving me extremely stressed and without the kind of levels of concentration or rational thought necessary for coherent writing, or the faith in my own ability to understand or justify anything to allow me to write it. However, this stuff is hopefully short term, and going to be resolved, and when it's resolved i'll probably post about it. My mind is in too much of a state of flux for me to feel able to post about it before it gets resolved, tho...
Anyway, i'm gathering some determination to work through the above shit and write some posts on unrelated issues in the next couple of days or so...
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Comments
I've just realised that it's only possible to comment on this blog if you have a Google/Blogger account - this isn't intentional...
As there quite a few people who have WordPress or other blogs, or who don't have blogs as far as i know, who i'd like to be able to comment on stuff i post, i'm going to look into changing that... so apologies if my cluelessness about HTML makes me do anything that screws things up unintentionally...
Edit: I think i have fixed this. If anyone is reading this blog but can't comment, please email me to let me know...
As there quite a few people who have WordPress or other blogs, or who don't have blogs as far as i know, who i'd like to be able to comment on stuff i post, i'm going to look into changing that... so apologies if my cluelessness about HTML makes me do anything that screws things up unintentionally...
Edit: I think i have fixed this. If anyone is reading this blog but can't comment, please email me to let me know...
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