These are my favorite colors:
0066cc
007fff
3399ff
I’ve always loved the color blue but more and more as I’ve gotten older. I was looking at colors online today for a project and came up with a nice monocromatic blue palette that includes the above three colors. There are three more, which all together form a darker to lighter in luminosity from 30 to 80, stepped by 10. I love the 40, 50 & 60 ones, listed above.
That’s that!
In the last couple of years I had gotten a Cricut Expression, then a bit later there was a deal at Michael’s to buy a few cartridges and get a Free copy Design Studio via mail-in rebate.
I did everything and got an email response with my accepted rebate and all the information in that email to download and Activate the software officially.
I did that … downloaded, and had trouble with it running on my then Win XP latptop. I tried another computer, same OS, same problem. So I looked online, and found a scrapbook online dealer who had an older copy of the software on their site for dowload. I downloaded it and used my serial number for activation and it worked! (I actually wrote about it all on this blog at the time.) But I didn’t ever really use it. That was a computer that was left behind long ago.
This past Autum (2009) I was able to buy a Gypsy. I had tried to, before that, initiate support to get my Activation released so that I could install and use it fully, but I found little help in that. At one point on provocrafts site I had a support ticket open, and then another time I went back and it was all re-done, they upgraded something or something and my stuff was gone. I re-submitted and at some point after doing more and more with email I did get a response in February that they’d help me in customer support if I sent my proof of purchase & serial number to them.
I did, but never got a reponse, which is good since I did get a NEW computer again just last week. So having software that is like this is difficult, it doesn’t allow for re-installation easily. Anyhow, if I’d gotten a fulfillment then I would have maybe installed and activated, or might not have, since I wanted to, at that time, Upgrade to Win 7 and wanted to clean install, thus would have to re-install everything, so I could have had the freedom to wait, then when the opportunity to buy a new laptop came around I would have been able to get Design Studio running right now.
But no. I’m writing about it here that I’ve sent a second email to them. This time I got an automatic response email assigning me to a Support Ticket. It’s a never ending cycle. Support Ticket open, lost. Support Ticket open, ignored, finally email gotten later that it was closed, then later got email from a support person saying they’d help if I’d send this and that to them … so nothing happened when I did, I let it go. So today I tried and saw that it was a month ago that the last stuff happened, and maybe they reset my code without telling me? No, the serial number I have still doesn’t work. So I re-submitted via email, putting the “proof” in as an attachment of an email. That’s the only PROOF I have. They had better accept it or at least say something about it. I won’t be ignored.
The point of this is I hate making phone calls, and so I don’t have that as an option. It shouldn’t be so hard to get this resolved via email, for goodness sake. Just ’cause phone calls help some people get their activation available again doesn’t mean that’s the only way it can be done when it is stated in email to me that I can do it by email to support. So … I’m waiting.
The biggest beef I have about this is that it’s so hard to re-install something when you have such controls over unlocking the product like provocraft has. It’s nice to be official, but very limiting on how it works out.
I got a new laptop this past Friday at Best Buy. Toshiba Satellite A505-S6025 a new in 2010 model. We went to BB about a week ago and talked with a guy there and based on what I need, a machine to be able to work with pictures, graphics, video, which will be my interim machine until I can get a big desktop machine built to work with video …
We talked about different models and the point of the Satellite model I got was it had a separate dedicated graphics card, unlike what all the HP’s we’ve gotten over the last few or more years have. Also the size was interesting. I don’t particularly like too big, I don’t like mid-size more though. I had a 17″ laptop long ago. It was nearly too big. I then had a 15.4″ laptop and it was OK, but I longed for a smaller laptop, and eventually got a 12.1″ touchscreen laptop. That’s the one I’m now upgrading from. Not because it’s worn out, not because I don’t like it anymore, but because hubby needs a better computer for work and I could use a more powerful one with the things I do, and that HP tx2500 is powerful enough for the kind of graphics he’ll be downloading and using, but it’s hard to use for processing my Sony Handycam HD video & such things.
I started writing this post, the above two paragraphs, the day after purchasing the laptop. I do like it. I don’t like it. Main points of it are:
Pro:
Con:
I was thinking about returning it (would have to restore it to factory first) but then after a little looking online just realized there was no way I could afford a better laptop, and I need to put any $ like that into building a new power desktop for my video and graphics work.
All in all this computer IS more powerful than my HP tx2513cl, which I gave to my husband, which is an upgrade from my oldest laptop around here, HP5000 series from quite a few years ago.
I moved my stuff off of the tx2513cl onto this laptop, and then clean-installed Windows 7 Professional upgrade onto that HP, which had been running Vista Home Premium (yuck!) I wanted to upgrade it for me since October, but couldn’t convince my hubby to do it. Eventually he agreed to get me a new laptop & upgrade that one to Win 7 for him. OK, better deal in some ways. I don’t have touchscreen, panel swivel, etc. anymore. It was a nice size, small, light. But I do like larger monitors, I do have an Intuit 4 wacom tablet that I can use but just haven’t used it except for once before.
So I just decided for all the reasons stated and not stated that it was best to just keep this laptop and fill it up for use.
I shrank the C: drive and partitioned a second area for my stuff to reside alone (I prefer to have it separated so it doesn’t all blend in, and then I remember to keep everything separate when it matters & wouldn’t have thought of where it would go otherwise) I then installed Fedora 12 64-bit in the rest of the free space. It’s running OK. I actually like Windows a lot more now that I have Win 7 Pro 64-bit. It’s fast, overall, clean, easy to search and doesn’t seem to be working hard ever, when I’m just browsing the web or something easy, like my tx2513cl running Vista did.
This computer has a 16″ screen, it’s big. It does fit into my samsonite soft leather bag, not into the protected area, but fits with squeezing. I need to get a neoprene fitted sleeve then, which will make that easier. The times when I do travel with a computer I’ll have to just load less in the bag, which will probably make it lighter since I have tended to load it up with other devices and books and it got much heavier than my husbands bag (same kind) So a heavier computer that’s bigger will aide me in loading less into it. That’s good.
I have this problem occasionally. My hubby goes on business trips and doesn’t always keep me up to date. He has a calendar online and doesn’t update it when he’s out. He doesn’t txt me or tweet or answer vmail. He’s been gone since Monday this week and did call me or call me back each day until Wednesday it slowed down, and Thursday he didn’t respond until later, and then he was in transit to a new location and never let me know he arrived or anything since the early afternoon phone call.
I’ve dealt with him doing this kind of thing before and he just doesn’t realize how really important it is to keep me in the loop, I get very upset, rightly so when he doesn’t answer the phone hour after hour, after hour, after hour, and email isn’t replied to, txt msg’s go unreplied to …. I go nuts, and that’s the nicest way to put it. My body is starting to freak out and that is the point to all of this, I care, and because I care I can’t help thinking about all the bad things that could be happening.
In the past he poo-poos that all right after he has been out-of-contact for a very long time and finally contacts me. He doesn’t care like I do, that is very obvious.
I spent the whole day until just the last half hour jumping through Windstream hoops with that dratted horrid thing called speedstream 4200 from them.
To be fair, it may also be the Belkin wireless router at fault to some degree, but the only thing I can attest to is that connecting directly to the speedstream 4200 with a computer has not allowed it to connect to the internet everytime. The Windstream Broadband Installer activation page would show up sometimes, forcing me to go through things with it to let me online at all. After all that, following directions found on windstream.net as well as directions elsewhere found via google … I successfully put the speedstream 4200 into Bridged mode. Only then the Belkin N+ wouldn’t connect, or couldn’t, or something. So I then would have to reset the modem to access it in IE by direct computer connection again.
I did follow some instructions that promised that by connecting like a dial-up to it bridged and being successful in such a PPPoE connection that would prove it was indeed bridged and would then work with the router when hooked up and credentials put into the PPPoE interface. Fine, that worked. I figured it would since jumping through all the Activation hoops all day long I knew by then that computer connecting to modem wasn’t a big deal anymore, it was working to connect to the internet right away, or at least bring up the activation windstream pages, like I said, at the least.
In this case, online right away. So I disconnected, put the cables back to the router as is proper. The router just bleeped those orange lights at me. The modem just sat there with power, ethernet, dsl nice and solid green. Now earlier today I had restored the router to factory default and had the same reaction afterwards, I tooled things up here and there and did more and reset to factory again, still no internet connection.
Well I got to that point then to restore to factory default AGAIN. And wouldn’t you know it. I input my PPPoE credentials and voila! Data was populating the “almost connected” fields on the home page, and the lights were all blue on the router face, and the bottom one was blinking. Almost connected, yes, yes, connected!
Since then I reapplied my wireless settings, and such and here I am on my laptop is online and that’s the first time today it’s been online as properly should be routed through my Belkin.
So I must find out if it’s the Belkin that’s the biggest part of this problem, or the Speedstream 4200 or Windstreams DSL or if it’s all of them together.
I would like to get a different router, this one is new, but since I’ve had all this trouble right before and more ever since …
I would like to see about buying a modem that isn’t such a “walled garden” as the Speedstream 4200 is, as long as it’d be a modem that would work and be just that, a modem for our dumb DSL that we need SOOOO much.
I have done everything correctly over and over and over. This is such a stupid thing, not even a mystery. I’m tired of it. I’ve spent more time on this for the last couple of weeks that anything else at all, except sleep, maybe.
I wrote about the troubles I’ve been having with our Windstream DSL on Sunday past. This morning I awoke and came downstairs to see the router blinking blue where it should be solid if connected, but blinking means “connecting” and it just sat there doing that, and nothing was actually connecting, and DSL light on the modem was solid, and activity light nearly solid.
Let the games begin.
I jumped through all the hoops a few times. Basically connecting the modem directly to the computer, and getting into the browser configuration to see what’s going on. The information there showed that it was connected … to something, but not pingable. Like this: open a new tab, type twitter.com … it just sits there as if it’s going to contact the site requested … this is with the modem connected to the computer directly.
In the past I could then go to the PPP setup and input my user name and password for DSL and that would either connect or not.
Today I got something else when I tried that. I got an error message, which I should have printed, but didn’t … I kick myself about this. Anyhow it was like, my credentials weren’t good.
I tried it again, turned the modem off/on, tried everything over and over. Rebooted setting to Factory Default. Still the same things, modem connects to windstream as Factory Default, but then can’t ping, and nothing else happens when you try to load any website.
After I did a couple of different things like that, I guess I’d Factory Defaulted a couple or more times, then suddenly I got the Activation page. This time it was different from the previously documented [Sunday 3/7] time … now it had two choices, “recently reset the modem” or “new subscriber or new modem for current subscriber” … on the right was the “third party” link so I clicked that instead this time, and after all the waiting, it said everything was great. So I tried to make it all work again, the full thing via the router, nope.
So then I reset the modem again, connected it to the computer directly again, the “windstream” connected was connected … and the same Activation page as earlier came up again. So this time I chose “recently reset modem” and it boiled and toiled and round and round until finally it said it was done.
I reloaded the speedstream modem in the browser and lookee, right there where I had no input anything since resetting to Factory Default the “windstream” data was gone, and my credentials were there, except different from how I usually have had them working, this had @windstream.net tagged on. It was connected and I opened a new tab and typed twitter.com, enter, flloooop …there it was.
Sick of it all. So I just put the ethernet cable back to the router, so modem and router connected, then in the router I told it to “dynamic” connect.
It balked at that for several seconds, then decided that it was OK and … signal distributed to network.
Hmmm.
Not what I want to go through again, not what I want to do at all. I don’t want to mess with the router at all ever never, but I can’t make it connect lately if I don’t … connect to the computer to see what the stinking modem is doing and jump through all those Activation pages ……….. I’m gonna go insane.
Thing is now, I could wait hours with no internet, touch nothing, and eventually my internet would be connected, all while waiting with a solid green DSL line showing. But it’s not supposed to do that, it SHOULD work that I have a modem, just put it connected to the DSL line, then connect ethernet from it to WAN port on router, and tell the router to use PP0e and my credentials.
It was setup like that always in the past. Lately the outages like that are frequent and the only thing I can do is jump through the hoops or not. I know how nuts I feel when the DSL is not connected, and since there IS something I can do it’s the only thing I will do. The problem comes when examining that supposed something I can do, it’s not so easy, it’s complex as to why it’s happening and just which result I’ll get when I do this or that. It’s troublesome, complex, and totally insane.
Is it the DSL, that I’m on the edge of the speed we have? It worked flawlessly for weeks upon weeks, and if something DID happen, it was easy enough to reconnect but it never got like this until recently. Now I could put everything back the way I want it, it might work to have the router control the PPPoE now, but I do have connection to the internet setup using it dynamically and I don’t want to mess with it. We’ll see how long this lasts, a day, two days, more or less, or longer?
In the last few months (I need to research this and input the actual date, it was in 2010) we got a new TV, eventually slated for the kitchen, but put into immediate use in the master bedroom replacing the finally dead Emprex piece of junk. It quit turning on via the button on the frame, then wouldn’t turn on with the remote unless first unplugged then plugged back in, then it quit turning on no matter what. Which was all fine with me as it was a 720p HDMI TV with no HDMI plugged into it, and more than half the screen gone with white or black lines or blanked out. I’d shrunk the picture to be just the middle of the screen, a traditional square tv image, in other words, but the lines eventually started on the right side and grew and grew. It was a TV and is still one that might have/or will be able to be fixed but it’s one that I wouldn’t care to have fixed at all, so it’s in the garage until we figure out where to bring it.
The TV we did get is a lovely Vizio 23″ Razor – VM230VXT — true 1080 HDMI LED (mercury free!) with flat glass edge to edge (no “frame”) and touch sensing controls on the bottom left of the screen (on/off volume, menu, etc.) and also ambient light sensing for better picture in different lighting scenarios.
Eventually we’ll get a new TV for the living area and retire the current tv there to the master bedroom, a 37″ Vizio 1080 HD tv.
We’d like to get a 42″ Vizio 3D HD tv … that is what we are considering for later this year.
The other main thing is DirecTV. We are still getting standard signal from them, utilizing our older DirecTivo DVR’s, which we know we would prefer over the newer DirecTV DVR’s … but haven’t jumped to HD with them yet because of not knowing what kind of HD DVR they have that we’d want, waiting for DirecTivoHD to come first to make a decision, so far nothing going on except for possible boxes like that coming that will be good or will be not so good, but no actual boxes.
I’d do more research right now, but Directv.com isn’t letting me login or get anywhere. Click on anything and it’s like the stone age. Nothing changes, only semi-freezes. Awful.
I’m sick of Windstream DSL. We’ve had issues “connecting” in the past here and there. Every time it was a reset to the modem that allowed us to connect to DSL again, only after trying it a few times … I wrote about it when it was happening in 2009. Someone commented, basically saying that resetting the router to factory wouldn’t help, and would hurt and wouldn’t make it work, blah, blah, blah.
The past few weeks things have gotten bad again. Reboot everything a few times, then at some point, router is able to establish a PP0e session all by itself as it usually does.
After a few of those sessions we found that our router wouldn’t allow wireless connections anymore, something was messed up, there was nothing that fixed it (factory reset didn’t help) and it’s unsupported by D-Link anyhow now. No firmware updates, no fixes of any kind worth doing. So we got a new router.
It works differently to connect to PP0e through the speedstream 4200 modem. I mean, it controls it, keeps it going differently, the D-Link router allowed me to connect and disconnect and the new one, a Belkin, is just a solid connected or not automatically without any interaction possible.
So we had the new router and things were fine for a little while. Then one morning we woke up to “no internet” and bouncing back and forth to this and that allowed no connection to the internet.
If we called Tech support they’d force us to connect the modem directly to a computer before they’d “help” … I mean, they sometimes will say “yeah, there’s a problem” and that’s it, they fix it where ever that is, and we can connect. That happens occasionally, but rarely. So most of the time we just wait and wait and wait, while I reset, turn off/on, etc. Until finally, the Belkin has blue lights all the way down.
Now the last few times, since it’s happened more and more of late, I have taken the ethernet cord connected to the desktop computer and router, unconnected it from the router and connected that to the ethernet port on the speedstream 4200 modem (obviously unconnecting the ethernet from modem to router first.) Then I get into the speedstream by going to 192.168.254.254 in my browser. It always has PPP setup with “windstream” as user name, and “connecting” with those credentials usually makes a seemingly good connection, but you can’t browse the internet.
If I put my username and password into the modem interface I can also connect. Sometimes I can then click one of my Fast Dial (firefox add-on) links and the page loads and anything on the internet is available. But I don’t want to connect like that, I want my router to control things and distribute the internet to my home network.
So when I can get that to connect like that, I reset to factory the modem, and hook everything back up the way I want it, router behind the modem. Sometimes the router then is able to connect, but not every time. It doesn’t matter what I do, what method of when to connect what cable, it either works or doesn’t.
The other thing that sometimes happens when I have the modem connected to the computer directly, when the router can’t connect, I “connect” but trying to load a web page it goes to Windstream Broadband Activation Installer, and in Firefox it just twirls around forever looking for whatever it is looking for.
I don’t want that, I want my internet connection to be there and that’s that.
Today I got sick of the song and dance and when the last action above was happening, and no real internet presenting itself to me at all, I right clicked that stupid Windstream page and opened it in IE with my IE view Firefox add-on. The same action occurred, but continued forward and resolved to present me with the opportunity to do more.
In the future I will click something else. This time I did click “cancel” and I loading any web page only brought up that Windstream Activation thing. I didn’t want to do it, but I finally did click through and enter a few things. At the end, Voila! I was able to load twitter.com, etc.
That wasn’t what I wanted to see, but it gave me a clue about the stupid whole thing I’ve been dealing with. Somewhere on their end Windstream is doing something or something happens which causes this behavior, but the 4200 has activation software in it that forces this issue, and the fact that it doesn’t always require this is quizzical (sometimes I can connect with my router controlling the PPOe eventually, when I haven’t done anything with this Activation Installer in the browser) but I do know that others online talk of this activation stuff, but I can avoid it and reconnect eventually, but today I got SICK of it and went with it.
I did then re-set to factory the speedstream 4200 then connect it to the router. The router promptly connected to the internet.
NEXT time this happens, I’ll load the darn thing to the computer, click on the “3rd party” thing and see if it’ll let me connect at THAT point.
So the future will let us know, I just despise this thing, I have a router that I want to act as my managing agent, I just want a DSL modem, I don’t want a modem/router. I want to connect to my DSL that I’ve had for a long time. I’m no new customer. I never had to go through that before, but I do know that the last month or so I’ve seen that Windstream Broadband Activation Installer when I have done the “I don’t want to but OK I’ll connect the modem to the computer directly” deed. Truth being truth, I don’t recall if I have seen it before for real, I do know I have seen a graphic of the thing before, when searching for info about windstream and not being able to connect, and if I have seen it in a browser before would have only happened if a Tech on the phone forced one of us to put the modem to the computer directly … but … it goes all back to how we use the system in the first place.
At no time ever did we input info into the modem directly. We have always had a router between computers and the modem. In any case, I can’t say how come the internet is gone sometimes and I can’t get it back even when I reset the modem to factory default and leave everything connected as usual. Or take everything apart and do this and that and the other and still nothing, or sometimes it comes back right away, or later, or much later.
So today I did that activation thing and I was back in. It’s not a hoop I want to have to jump through, and I will try the other link on the page if it presents itself again. I am also going to start a log sheet for marking down when and what happens when what is done or not. I have only spent to many hours of late trying to get the internet back. Every single time the darn “dsl” light on the modem is present and solid, bill paid, etc.
I test my speeds often enough and my speeds are fine up and down. FWIW I am have currently been connect to the internet for about 1:45 hrs:mins since connecting modem to activation in IE & letting that do it’s thing, having internet browsing available then unconnecting modem from computer, then resetting it to factory default and connecting it to router and having it connect immediately. Man I am tired of this circus.
My husband and I saw Alice in Wonderland (2010) in IMAX 3D on opening day, March 5, 2010. It was a very good movie, visually appealing and the story flowed well. I’m looking forward to seeing it again, with my children this next time.
I know I’ve seen 3D something before, but I can’t recall exactly what/when. This was my first REAL Modern (or Post-Modern, what-ever) 3D experience. I love IMAX movies. Put the 2 things together, it’s better than ever.
My hubby just looked up to see if tickets could be had for a showing today where we would go. Sold Out.
I bought my tickets for Opening Day 4:20pm showing via my Palm Pre (webOS) Fandango App on Tuesday, March 2, 2010.
The movie is as dark as the Alice story actually is. It’s rated PG and suitable for most children, I’d venture to guess.
The Alice character was well played, I had imagined a rounder-eyed Alice (not the Disney animated one, I’ve actually never seen that movie en-total.) but was happy with Disney’s choice of Mia. I especially applaud her curly hair through the movie:)
Bleu Sebastian, sitting for photograph on green futon.
–> Photo taken on film in 1994/1995 < –
This photo on flickr.
