Music and Photos

This week, on Friday precisely, I am supposed to get something I ordered on eBay … a new soundcard. It’s one that has an external interface box, and will allow me to get my records and tapes into my computer finally 🙂

I have some vinyl coming in the mail this week as well. Asia, Heart, and Styx. I have CD’s for some of the Styx, but not the vinyl. I don’t have all on CD that I’m getting on vinyl either. I actually like listening to records, so since I can get my records on the computer soon, and I have a good record player now, I can have the best of both worlds. All three groups above I didn’t have much of, just knew them from the radio and borrowed-from-library-tapes some of them way back when. I had one Asia record. So soon I should have the first 3 Asia (the real Asia) albums, The late 70’s and early 80’s Styx albums (4 of them), and Heart’s “little queen” album (my favorite “Heart” that I know of for sure.)

I have all my other albums still, of course. I will be able to rip those into the computer,but not sure how much of it, since I don’t have a new hard drive for music, yet. I want one, but don’t have one. I have other newer computer stuff, like the sound card that’s coming, and some other things. Can’t do everything I want at once, choices are hard. I do have a little laptop hard drive that I could connect, but I need the cables and rails for it, or a housing for it. I have my old laptop in a housing with USB connection. I don’t really want an external hard drive for the music though, so I’ll probably just get a little kit to connect inside and gain another 20 gigs, or 30, forget which that extra hard drive is.

Another of the new things is an Epson Picture Mate. It’s a dedicated 4×6 photo printer. Hubby got it as an anniversery gift the other day. Now I can easily print out my digital photos from the last few years whenever I want. It’s quite different than thinking on what to get printed and having to put it on a CD and bring it somewhere and have them print how many … Now I just do one or how many of whichever I feel I want at a time.

The quality looks superb. The Epson Picture Mate photos are supposed to last to 100 years with no fading in a frame, and 200 years in a dark book (like scrapbook.) I have printed out a few from the digital pictures I’ve gone through from this year and last. They look as if I had them printed from film in a shop … I mean they are clear and look like real photos. Really good. The Picture Mate comes in two models now. The newer one has a small picture LCD screen for seeing what to print from a card, the older model only has text LCD. The newer on prints out a pic in about 75 seconds. It has a few other features that the older one doesn’t have. Both print the same sort of thing, use the same ink and paper pack. One pack is about $29 and has the ink and paper for 100 photos, guaranteed. The other deal about Epson prints is that the ink is waterproof. I love that. I have another Epson, not a photo Epson, but an All-In-One that uses great ink that’s smuge/water proof. It’s pee proof too. I had a color doc I’d printed and a cat pee’d on it. I threw it away, of course, but the ink was intact completely. That was a great test, not planned at all, but great nonetheless. Runproof inkjet printing on normal inkjet or copier paper … that’s good news that I’ve used for a few years about.

Sometime I’d like a bigger photo printer too, for 8×10’s. I can print that with my current Epson All-in-One, but the blacks aren’t photo blacks. Their photo printers are better for photos. For now, the 4×6 only printer is fine, it’s my most needed size to have on hand, and I’ll want that as it is now, from one dedicated machine, if possible.

It’s a fun little machine, very mobile, can use it with computer, or not. Use it with the camera, or with a card, thumb drive, etc. This model also has a re-chargable battery OPTION. Extra buy, of course, that means. The other model is older and cheaper, DH wanted me to have the funtionality of this newer one though. Thank you DH!