One of the best features of my (slowly going obsolete) laptop is its amazing wireless reception. I can get reception in places where no one else can. Like the TA room in my department, for example. Or the basement seminar room where I'm currently sitting, invigilating a make-up exam and figuring out the distribution of grades in the course ( Read more... )

My cat has developed a charming new habit: tipping over glasses. She prefers ones with liquid in them, but she'll take any she can get. On Saturday, I made the mistake of forgetting about this new habit and setting down a glass of water on the coffee table. She went for it, of course, but I was faster. I grabbed it before she tipped it...and then ( Read more... )

My cat managed to turn on scroll lock on my computer this evening while trotting on my keyboard. This is particularly impressive on two counts ( Read more... )

My newest pet peeve: people without laptops or other electronic devices who sit at one of the very small number of library cubicles with power outlets while ignoring the many perfectly good, entirely empty cubicles without power outlets.

Hmm, you'd think after finishing my comp, I'd have more time to post. But of course, now I'm not trying to desperately to procrastinate, and so I'm less motivated. Instead, I've been trying to catch up with things I let slide over the summer. The past two weeks have mostly been errands and housework: fall cleaning (finally!) and taking in pants to ( Read more... )

When I took my laptop down a couple of weeks ago to get the graphics card motherboard replaced, I also mentioned that I thought the hard drive might be failing. Something about it not being able to save important files like the Master File Table. They, of course, found nothing wrong. Now my computer is buzzing and rattling. Very loudly. And won't ( Read more... )

Wow, my blog is dull these days. I read, I read, and I read some more. The lively life of a graduate student! And then sometimes I curse my broken graphics card (I'm definitely taking it in for repairs this week), and I read a bit of the news or check if my flist has been updated, and then I go back to reading theory. I suppose I could post book ( Read more... )

Happy Canada Day! (Or happy Dominion Day for the old timers.)

I'm not being very Canadian today: no red-and-white clothing, no vacation at a lakeside cottage, no Canadian flag on the balcony, and I was thinking of trying Phil's southern barbeque for supper. And then maybe going to see Superman. Or possibly the fireworks ( Read more... )

I think the hard drive on my laptop may be faltering. Lately, it's been making more noise than it should be. It's not clicking yet--just buzzing--but I suspect it won't be long, so I've been assiduously backing up my data. Annoying, but this is what extended warranties and 250GB external hard drives are for. And on the bright side, a hard drive ( Read more... )

Does anyone have any idea what might cause red dots to pop up all over my screen? It started with random red dots, and then vertical lines of red dots, and now I've got horizontal lines too. It's starting to make it very hard to read the screen. They mostly show up on white backgrounds, and mostly in browsers, but I do get them on other colours and ( Read more... )