So about 1 month ago today, I was rear ended while coming home from a soccer game.  It was not my best day.  I had taken two different shoes to my soccer game (one indoor, one turf) and i kept trying to call Mario but his phone wasn’t picking up and so on and so forth.

Anyway,  the accident itself was not that bad, or at least it didn’t look that bad.  I was gone to vegas the first week but I didn’t really hear from the USAA adjuster or even my own   for that whole first week.  Finally on Wednesday of the next week I got the car towed to the shop.  The battery had died because the trunk wouldn’t close after the accident.

So all of this time I have been waiting and waiting, calling the shop, calling the USAA insurance adjuster (who has been totally unresponsive).  I found out from the shop (not from the adjuster) that when they actually took the car apart to start fixing it that they found more damage than they had estimated so now the insurance company is going to total out my car.

Today i got really tired of calling and leaving this adjuster messages so I called the main 1-800 line and asked for a supervisor and she confirmed what I had suspected, that they had dropped the ball.  So hopefully by next week I will have the money in hand from my totalled car, and be able to put this all behind me.  I know I have said that i would like to get a different car, but its just a real pain in my ass to have to do it this way.   I mean its one thing to start looking for a car, take your time, figure out what model is right for you research the prices and so on.  Now I have to do it in less time.  blah!

Anyway, hopefully this drama will end soon.

I just now spent money on a computer.  My mom would probably balk at spending $1000 on a computer, but HEY I worked hard for that money (read- I sat quietly for two days in a room full of stressed out bar applicants in Las Vegas).

I used to use a tablet, and Electrovaya slate tablet to be exact.  I liked it it had really great battery life and was much more portable than the last computer I had had.  I enjoyed the looks I got from geek boys at conferences who admired my computing style from afar when I used that computer, and I loved most of all bragging about how great the battery life was.

But when I started to work with WordPress, having to connect a keyboard was crucial, the couple times I tried to edit a style sheet or one of the pages it just did not work with the slate (It could be done but it was kindof a pain in the ass).  Then traveling with the slate entailed the hauling of peripherals.  I had a book stand (one of the ones used to hold them open) and then a fulsixed keyboard, and mouse (usb but still) and the screen was only 8″ which made doing actual work a bit not so fun.  And the wi-fi, don’t even get me started on the wi-fi.  I could be standing next to a wireless router and still not get a signal.  Needless to say the cons outweighed the pros.

Back in December I started using a “regular” Laptop for and for working with WordPress, it was SOOO much easier.  The computer that I was using was a patched together Frankenstein that someone was kind enough to give me.  It worked better than my tablet, but was still not so great.    The wireless was more reliable, the screen was larger, there was an attached keyboard BUT the battery was pretty much dead so I have to be plugged into the wall at all times.  This machine has always been a temporary machine.  I would occasionally open up my tablet for a wisper of nostalgia, and then quickly turn it off when it took too long to open programs.

In my original quest for a new computer I was firmly set on a tablet, and the tablet I had my heart SET on was the Fujitsu Lifebook, T4000 series.  The first one I saw was the T4210, then they upgraded the specs to include up to 4gb of ram and some other fancy specs.  What I really liked about this machine was that unlike other tablets the specs were on par with a normal  laptop, and it had this modular dvd bay where you could take out the dvd drive and put in a second battery.  I was so spoiled by the battery life on the electrovaya, and so frustrated with the lack of it on the Frankenstein dell, that I really liked this feature.  But alas, the starting price for one of these fine machines was at least $1,700.  I wanted to buy it back in March, but I used the money to pay off some big debts instead (damn you Mario and your encouraging me to be financially responsible …. double fist shake in air).  I also never felt right about the price, I mean you could get a regular laptop with the same specs for half that price.

So this time around when I knew I was getting a chunk of money, I really started researching and I expanded my options to include regular laptops.  I decided on the Toshiba U300 that I customized a little bit.  I am very excited.  We saw it at Frys but the ones they had there didn’t have bluetooh, which come on shouldn’t that be standard by now?  I got  1 gb  of ram (one stick) so I will be able to get a2 gb stick later and just pop it in.  Its 13.3 inch screen and about 4.5 lbs which means it is pretty light and portable (which was a must for me).  its 80 gig hard drive, but that can easily be upgraded in the future it turns out I am running low on space.  Coming from a 20gb hard drive though I think i will be set for a while.  Oh and a built in webcam.  (can we say puppy cam to see what the Mono does all day?)

I placed my order today and it says that a custom machine may take 8-10 business days to build (does toshiba cuddle with each of the parts before putting them in?).  Then two day shipping, and I should be getting my compy at the most in about two weeks (oooo i hope sooner)

I will post pictures ans stuff when I get it.  THere are hardly any reviews out there for this machine so why not produce at least one.

Posted by mobile phone:
I just remembered it’s possible to upload a video file through this plug in so this is the trial run.

File info:
Type: video 3gp
Size: 435.99 kb
My first attempt at uploading a video

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Update: (5 minutes later)

Viewing the link to the video file didn’t really work from my mobile phone.  I did just look at it from my computer, and initially it used the Nokia media player which was fine.  I then chose to open it with Quicktime which seemed to work just fine as well.

The quality of the video is so so.  While it is coming from a fairly good mobile phone, its not the greatest in terms of clarity, BUT this test was more to test the actual uploading process and what the post would look like so quality aside it came out pretty well.  I could imagine making a little montage video of some photos taken through out the day (because I can do that sort of stuff on my phone) or posting short little updates during vacation.

I love this plugin (now that I moved to a linux server) and can use the full photo and video posting capabilities.    LOVE IT!  Thank you Andy Moore !