But given the recent-ish changes in Ubuntu (which I wasn’t exactly a fan of) plus the fact that I wanted to play games properly¹ on my computer (which was why I built it so souped up in the first place!) I decided to give in and get Windows 7.

The install process went very smoothly and so far I really like what I am seeing. It’s taking a while to get used to things since I’ve never used 7 before (I went XP to several Ubuntu releases to 7) but it’s quite intuitive, for me anyway. It’s very nice to have programs back that I gave up when I stuck with Linux, although of course the trade-off is that I have lost programs that I grew to love on Linux.

But the big upside is I no longer have to whip out my netbook whenever I need to do something like download ebooks from the library or get files from the external harddrive. That got annoying real fast.

I haven’t made the decision of whether to dual-boot Ubuntu back onto Epic Comp. I’ll give Windows 7 a few more days just on its own to force me to get used to it and then decide. I’ve been iffy on Ubuntu ever since Natty/Oneiric went off in its new direction so I’m really going to give it a good hard think.

In the meantime, Windows users, would you like to educate me on some of your favourite programs/7 features and addons? It’s been a long time since I’ve looked for new Windows programs.

1. Seriously. I skipped and jumped and juddered my way through the first two acts of Dead Island via Wine and that was enough to break me

Anyway, here’s a brief list of all the software things I will be using this coming month, for various reasons.

• Scrivener: Since it’s now available for Linux this’ll be my first year using Scrivener for NaNo. I like it though.
• Write or Die: Because sometimes you just need a major push to get those words out.
• NovProg2: As this is a word counter that stays on my comp, it means I don’t have to run to the NaNo site every time to check how I have been doing, and risk getting distracted by the rest of the internet.
• Songbird: Because I need music, goshdarnit! This is also why I will have my iPod ready to go at all times.
• Pidgin: For the few times I will venture online to chat with writer friends and keep in touch with the #nznano IRC channel.
• The GIMP: For getting distracted making pretty things like book covers and playlist covers.

And, of course, there is always the classic pen and paper – I especially like stuff from Smiggle. I have a long calendar on my wall that I think I shall put a sticker on for each day I meet the target. Because everyone likes stickers.

I have tried a lot of stuff since I started writing novels (such as yWriter) but it just had too much. For every thing I felt I could use, there were ten things I did not need. I just wanted something where I could bullet point my characters and the like.

So you can imagine my delight when I discovered Kabikaboo, which basically just makes a collection of linked text files. It puts them in order, with children and grandchildren and stuff like that. It might not let me add styling and hyperlinks (which I would love) but that’s okay for now, as that stuff is supposed to come out in future versions. It’s simple, and it’s exactly what I wanted.

I love it when you find something after much searching and get it. It’s like when I found Write Or Die.

So, writers out there, what are some of the other tools you use? I’d love to see what else people are using, and maybe find something else to use too.

This is not me apologising for not blogging, as this post has an actual point to it.

My laptop has used up another life, and it’s choking and gasping and, well, not doing anything, really. And after all of the problems I have had with it, I have finally had enough. Actually I had had enough long before now; it’s just taken me this long to save up enough for the parts to build my own PC. (We have decided to call it Torchwood)

So now I’m looking at Linux installs, since I don’t want to spend 150-200NZD on Windows (XP or Vista) with Windows 7 coming out in October. More specifically I am looking at Ubuntu and its many derivatives. Does anyone have any suggestions versions that would be good for someone who has used Windows most of her life, or ways to make the changeover easier?

Expect a lot of blog posts about my venture into Linux and building a PC in future. But don’t worry – there’s some more writing ones hidden up my sleeve. Especially now that I am working on Lionheart…

You get three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

Yeah, it’s being a pain in the rear again. This time my user profile is corrupt and I have had to set a new admin profile up. All my files are safe; this is just annoying, having to reset all the little things I had: Firefox addons, Thunderbird settings, bookmarks… all the little things like that.

It’s nothing too major in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still annoying. Only a smilie can properly show my feelings.

hnoes:

For a good chunk of this weekend, a friend and I have been watching videos made with Sims 3, as posted on their official website and their youtube account, and ooh-ing and aah-ing over new features and the way things look. We commented on the resemblances between Susan Boyle and Barack Obama’s Sims and the real thing in the Good Luck, Susan Boyle video. And we laughed ourselves silly at a parody of the new Star Trek trailer made entirely with Sims 3. The image accompanying this entry is from a screengrab of that trailer. My favourite bit? Red Shirts will die…

So: are you looking forward to Sims 3? If so, what things are making you so excited? I am looking forward to (amongst other things) being able to customise personalities more, a grid that is four times smaller, being able to select lifetime wishes (and having a larger range of wishes to choose from) and, of course, the open neighbourhood system.

No, wait. That’s not it.

The good news is that my computer has been resurrected as a zombie. No, not as a vampire, which is a case of being both cursed with awesome and blessed with suck, a zombie. Instead of gaining immortality and superior strength and senses etc. my computer has come back only to slowly rot and fall apart. I have taken to calling my laptop Owen, partially because of the state the computer is in, and also due to the eventual replacement being called Torchwood Three.

Insert your own “turn on Torchwood” jokes here. It’s all right – it’s one of the reasons I chose the name.

Anyway, to celebrate the return of my laptop I have been able to finish the design I started a little while ago. I hope you like it.

And now I can go back to The Superhero Diaries.

I am writing this from the family’s desktop, which only reminds me of how much I miss having a computer in my room, with all my programs and files and everything. I miss my firefox install, with its bookmarks and addons and British-English spellcheck.

Don’t worry if the laptop takes my novels with it: the most recent versions of Blood Bound are with my wonderful beta, and the beginning fragments of Bones and The Superhero Diaries can be pieced together from stuff I have in various emails/from my notebook. I will have to do some extra typing and re-do a few things, but it could have been far, far worse.

In a way, this is a good thing, as I have been wanting a new laptop for some time now. The bad side, on the other hand, is that I cannot afford a new laptop right now, and it will take me about a month until I have saved enough money for the replacement I have got my eye on. So I am trying to look on the bright side in the meantime: being online less will mean less online distractions, so I can write my novels by hand in my notebook; I have noticed that when I type things up online from handwritten notes things get expanded, and my word count increases. So hooray for that.

So don’t worry about me if I am not online as much as usual. I’m still around, still writing… and looking for things that I need to get rid of anyway, and figure how much they’d be worth on TradeMe. It seems that not only am I trying to trim the fat on my body, but everywhere else now, too.