Plugging along

Old Underwood typewriter

The month is slipping by faster than I feel I am making progress. I do have 2 video courses all done and am slowly getting them up on teach:able. Slowly because I am trying to learn the platform and get comfortable with it, vs the numerous u-turns and detours I seem to be making. It can get very frustrating, which in turn allows those little negative imps to increase their chatter. Thus far, my excitement about the new direction has kept my energy up, this week it was hard though as it felt like not much fell in place. Hopefully, this coming week will prove to be a smooth stretch so I can get more done with fewer errors. I still have a laundry list of large and small items to finish, and my goal of August 30th draws nigh.

Getting somewhere?

Small pollinator on bright orange cosmos

Much like this little pollinator I have been busy the past couple days getting online course videos done, uploading them, finding typos in the form, trying to figure how to access, fix, and resave them. It has been a mainly fruitless task as deletion is the only option offered, no rewrites or write overs will take. To say it has been frustrating is to scratch the surface. It can be hard to go with delete and see all the work disappear, but staying in the “futile to save” loop is an exercise in futility. Of course delete does not always work either, and then things are left in a state of limbo requiring a tech call to handle it. Needless to say, 3 days later that is the route I have had to go in the hopes that they can remove the offending courses that I can’t override. Sigh. It is all part of the process, though this weekend it has felt like a process with no forward gains.

Obsolete

It would appear the demise of my laptop is approaching. There are signs that it’s 8 year life may be winding down. I do not enjoy shopping for computers, having only the merest grasp on all the unintelligible “key points” listed on the info tag. But the likelihood is I will have to tackle that task and shell out the cash this year. I would like to reset my current one back to it’s brand new state, but a factory reset isn’t quite the step that will fix whatever has embedded itself deep in the works. The nuisances of modern life.

Next time around

Next time around I will see the super moon. Believe it or not I missed it every evening. It was either raining, I was getting dinner on the table, I was at work or I was once again on the phone with tech support trying to add items to the website. Being on the phone with tech support is not something that makes me feel smart. I go through all the steps required, and yet still that final click doesn’t add the item. I try the help page, no help. And so I call, I take notes (which don’t seem to match the previous set or asks for steps that don’t exist in this call), and still need to call the next time. Frustrating to say the least, and yet since I pay a monthly web hosting fee I am making use of the tech services!

So the end result is that I missed the super moon but got the item onto the site. So, success on one front at least!

Bridging

Right now there are so many things I am bridging as I move from one place in life to the next. A child off to college, a potential new job, an unexpected September show, even a new phone with all the differences in features to name just a few. Not all are seamless, actually none of them are. (You wouldn’t think phone would be on the list, but new technology can be a challenge!) I have been tackling the phone and the show as they are the only things I can have a modicum of control over. Either I will get the job or I won’t. The child will get off to college whether she packs ahead or the night before. The show is basically all set, just some images to frame and the chosen ones to hang. Which brings me to the phone. I gave in and got a smart phone so I can accept debit and credit cards, and give the camera a try. I am still of the mindset that a phone is for making calls on, not game playing or snap chatting. That being said I really like having the calendar, calculator and note pad as it cuts down on things to carry around. The camera I do enjoy, and I did on my old non smart phone, it is nice to have on hand for when I don’t want to carry a big camera. It does take some getting used to, but I am managing. As far as some of the other features, I probably have more than I will ever use.

A real first world problem: “more than I will ever use.”

Phones are so jammed packed with features that even the bells and whistles have bells and whistles!

Keepin’ on

Yesterday was a day spent trying to unravel a mysterious computer issue that refused to be easily resolved. As it is a computer that is less than a year old it was especially annoying. All I could do was keep on, and accept that some things had been unexpectedly deleted, that pages would jump and scroll unexpectedly, and that it would  be frustrating as all get out. Which it was and continues to be as I try to re-assemble all the sundry bits and pieces that I can.

It’s gonna be a long week at this rate!