Learning to Log Out
It's already 11pm, and I've re-written this opening sentence 4 times. The netbook I just re-installed Windows 10 onto is refusing to play ballI wanted to have the option of booting from a USB stick, but it's decided that's a really bad plan for some ridiculous reason known only to itself. I'll have another look another daythe end goal is to let the computer boot to DOS, and a word processorwhich it should do in about 5 seconds from cold. Yes, I'm thinking about NaNoWriMoAnyway. I can't write about anything I did today, because I spent 90% of it sitting in front of a computer writing Javascript code for a client projectand I don't talk about client projects. Not only would it be un-professional, but the level of interestingness (and no, that's not a real word) would drop to a level that could cause accidents.
We had a bit of a disaster at home when I got in this evening. Miss 11 sat down at the computer in the study (we call it the study, but it's really the junk room), saw that Miss 10's school project was on the screen, shut Microsoft Publisher down, clicked yes to anything that appeared on the screen, and promptly lost her sister's entire day's work on her school project.
There were tears, there was shouting, and I eventually got told off by my other half for not letting it go. I'm still not letting it go. There are some things the kids doridiculously stupid thingsthat you have to draw a line and pile guilt onto them. She destroyed an entire day of her little sister's work on the computer in secondsall because she couldn't be bothered to read anything. It's worth noting that we also lectured Miss 10 about saving and logging out.
I guess it's easy to take for granted that the children understand computers far more than they actually do. I supposed I often take for granted that everybody understands them more than they doeven though I've seen some pretty ridiculous things myself in the past. The tears and shouting weren't without some value thoughtonight I learned that the free version of OneDrive doesn't have file versioningand that's why I will be migrating all the kids files to DropBox in the near future. If Miss 10's work had been saved to DropBox instead of OneDrive we would have had a safety net.
I guess it's time to take the nerd hat off now.
Maybe I'll keep it on for a few more minutes.
I installed WeChat on my mobile phone earlier today, and wish I had done so before. Aided this evening by a far flung friend on the opposite side of the planet, we tried out a few of the featuressending chat messages, emoji, short video clips, and voice messages back and forth. First impressions are that it's much more slick than Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, KIK, WhatsApp, Voxer, or anything else I've seen recently. There is also a desktop app for Mac and Windowswhich changes the game entirely as far as I'm concerned. If you want to try WeChat out, or already have it, I'm on there as “recursivecodex”.
Time to go make a coffee and watch some forgettable TV I guess.