A Little Ord "to go"

So, like a lot of people, I have a laptop. It's a little on the older side, but it can more than keep up by modern standards, and it pretty much suits all my computer needs. I'm not much of a fan of Windows, so I'm running Linux Mint 15 with a stripped XP installed as a guest host in seamless mode. The translation of that gibberish is that when I want to write, even if I'm using Linux, all I have to do is click on one shortcut and a windows taskbar appears at the bottom of the screen just over my Mint taskbar, allowing me to very quickly and very easily boot up MSWord for my writing.

I like it, but it's still not enough.

Those who know me probably know I have a thing about extreme portability. I prefer handheld video game systems to consoles. I carry the smallest, thinnest possible wallet and take out absolutely anything from it I don't need to have on a daily basis. My keyring consists of a house key, a car key, and a single 5-yen coin I got as change in Japan that happens to have the year of my birth on it, on a tiny lanyard. Once upon a time laptops were the key to portability, but by today's standards they're big, bulky, hot, and since they don't live for very long on a charge, you're pretty much tethered to AC power most of the time anyway.

So, I bought a Sony Vaio netbook on ebay that was being sold "for parts". 90% off of retail is a deal to me, especially when I figured out the problem it was having wasn't so bad. I won't bore you with the technical details, but the long story short is that I had it working just fine for one night, and then discovered a short circuit. By the time I had the whole device torn down to look for the problem, I found so many other little things wrong with it that I wrote it off, and will in turn be selling it for parts.

What's left? I could just suck it up and stick with my laptop, but nooooo...I just have to have something smaller and more portable. So, now I'm waiting on a lapdock 100 for my phone. All the features of the phone in the package of a netbook, with a full keyboard and a nice display. What's even better, after my exhaustive search and comparison I have finally found an android word processing app that correctly preserves all of my word paperback formatting! Docs to Go wins the prize!

So, soon enough, perhaps you'll see me at Starbucks with a venti soy chai (no water) in one hand, and typing away with the other on something that looks like a netbook with a phone sticking out of it.

Nah, you won't see that. Typing with one hand just sucks. Maybe they'll give me a straw...




Still hangin' out in Ord

Hello all,

Just wanted to come back around and breathe some more life into this blog. The Traveler of Ord Saga is not in the least bit down and out - far from it, I just have a tendency to put the blinders on when I'm deep into writing. So, remembering to blog and keep everybody in the loop sometimes falls by the wayside. Sorry about that!

At any rate, progress on the sequel to The Goldenwealth Light has been good. The rough manuscript is nearly complete, and though it will of course need edits, I have a more refined system this time than I did for book one, so I don't expect it will take that long. If TGL was the setup for the series, expect book 2 to move a bit faster and include more detail. It will definitely be longer, and for those of you out there who wanted a more concrete ending, you'll at least be getting some short-term closure. Remember that the Traveler of Ord is not a series of stand alone books. I'll give you one hint as to the content and let you know that the first paragraph of book two is the exact same as the last paragraph of book 1 -- that should give you some idea of how quickly we'll be plunging back into the action. Be on the lookout for new locales, a cast of many new supporting characters, and a lot more action as we start to see just what Theodore Ellsworth is really up against in his travels through Ord! As always, progress updates are available on the facebook page :)

At present, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Sony Viao netbook I ordered on ebay last week. Got it at an almost literal "steal" - about 90% off of retail. The seller listed it as "broken", but from what they described, I'm pretty sure all it needs is a wipe, an OS reinstall, and some TLC. So long as the BIOS is good (fingers crossed!), I'll be sitting pretty. I'm particularly excited about the netbook because it's going to breathe some new life into writing for me. There are times now and then where I could be writing, but I just don't feel like having a hot, heavy laptop tethering me to the wall and weighing me down. How about that progress, huh? Years ago laptops were considered such beautifully portable alternatives to desktops and towers, and here I'm thinking of mine as clunky! Well, I'm an on the go sort I guess. I like computers, but I have never liked being stuck in the same chair for long periods of time. A netbook with good battery life should help with that. Can't wait to put Word 2010 on it and a stripped down XP install with "no-frills" so it'll chug along like lightning with little wear and tear. Here's hoping she comes to me with a sound body!