I decided to change my LJ style, and since this one reminds me a lot of my iPod mini that my coug'r gifted me for my birthday, it felt appropriate. It was a delayed present because he had it custom engraved and the craze hit just about the same time, so they were backordered. But now I have a cute *little* blue iPod, which I've dubbed "iPodling".

In my continuing struggle with technology, the current generation of iPods use either 6-pin Firewire or USB 2.0: My laptop has USB 2.0 but only the 4-pin (non-powered) Firewire ports; my desktop is only USB 1.1 and no Firewire. Fortunately, coug'r had an unused add-on PC board to enable Firewire on my desktop, so I picked up a mini Dock for iPodling to rest in at the desktop. Alas, I've *lost* the USB cable for iPodling (it came with both a Firewire and a USB 2.0 cable in the box), so I'll have to spend the $20 at the Apple Store to get a new one. The only 'difficulty' is that my desktop's slow, which includes both the DVD/CD-RW drive and the second CD-RW drive onboard... but since my laptop's DVD/CD-RW is much faster, it's easier to rip my favorite CDs via laptop, so it'd also be easier to add them to the iPodling via laptop, too. Oh, well, it'll get there.

Speaking of my laptop, I got it fixed. Whatever had munged with the USB engine was removed when I pulled up my Ghost Images of the system which I routinely update (in this case, it was a baseline image prior to my sending the laptop off for the third time). I now have working USB ports, which means my Wacom tablet, printer, and wireless LAN are all working fine (although I discovered a crack in my Graphire tablet, which is upsetting, since I really want to get back into computer illustration and it seems easier to do relaxed on a couch with my little tablet... and it costs $99 to get the platinum Graphire3 tablet to replace my older tablet) and if I can pick up a USB 2.0 hub and the cable for my iPod, I'll have all the functionalty I had before (while at school) with my laptop. yay!

Now to get back to a Get Well Card and possible silly comic for my friend SusanDeer to cheer her up... as long as I say in a relatively cool, low-humidity environment I should be able to get some work done at home tomarrow, which includes some much overdue art.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: music from "Uru: To D'Ni" expansion pack