bonny,

java is correct. paypal were being assy. that's why my credit card company were the ones to reverse the charges. paypal has it against their terms to do it now (I think), but I don't particularly give a shit. I don't commit fraud, I don't have my bank reverse charges often, and I'm a good customer.

looks like amazon won't close your acct if you dispute. just don't abuse it.

[link]

So I posted a photo on Flickr this morning, and it got one pageview. It came via Google. That means that less than an hour after I posted the photo, someone did a google search on the title of my photo, and there was a high-ranking google result for it.

Freaky.

Tom,

you sure that was an actual person and not a 'bot?

I can type the same search string and see it on Google, too.

I have become one of those people who has to write down every step to open/use a program on a computer. Not on my various Macs, but on the godforsaken piece of shit Windows 7 laptop I have to use to manage the library for the ADD group.

There is nothing about that OS that makes sense. Nothing. Up to and including trying to take a screenshot. I assume the PrtScr key is just a giant prank, right? Because it doesn't do anything.

Because it doesn't do anything.

It does on my computer. Puts a PNG of the entire screen on the clipboard, for easy pasting into Paint or whatever.

The Snipping Tool accessory that comes with the OS (I think) is also pretty handy. Certainly as easy to use, in my mind, as memorizing the four keyboard shortcuts to take screenshots on the Mac (though possibly there are other Mac routes to the same thing that I simply don't know about).

Having had some time to get used to it, I think I like Windows 7 as much as Mac OS X for many reasons. The only thing I REALLY miss regularly is Preview. There is nothing that is free on Windows that is as good at simple PDF viewing and manipulating as Preview. Not even close. And there are no free PDF annotators on Windows that can do pen annotations (which seems like an obviously good use of my tablet styuls) as well as the FREE ADOBE READER ON ANDROID. PDFs are strangely crappy to deal with on Windows.

Puts a JPEG of the entire screen on the clipboard, for easy pasting into Paint or whatever.

Wait. What good does it do on the Clipboard? So, I hit the print screen key, then have to paste the screenshot into Paint to be able to use it for anything? I don't want to paste it into Paint; I just want a screenshot to email to someone. My Mac just makes an image file out of the screenshot and saves it to the desktop, and I can e-mail it and be done. Why do I need to use Paint? That's an extra step that wastes time.

That's really how it works?

Or it could be seen as saving a step. Compose your email message and then just paste it into the message, without putting a copy of the file on your desktop and needing to select that file. No reason to go into Paint.

You know, I never think of pasting something into an e-mail message; I always attach files.

I think 98% of my problems here are due to how I think about how I'm using my technology. If that makes sense. Like, if I normally pasted stuff into e-mails, I would definitely think that putting an image file on the desktop is an extra step.

Hmmm.

I think I need a Windows 7 for Dummies book, pretty damn quick.

I jump back and forth between Windows and Mac a lot. I do spend most of my time on Macs since that's what I use for production and for running my business, but I find that most of the differences just come down to what you are used to and how you have the machine configured.

The Mac that I have in my studio for sound editing is a perfect example of this. I have a very specific set of configurations that I like for the machine and for Pro Tools. I have other folks come in and work in the studio and they will reconfigure things and it's like working on a totally different OS to me. They always say the same thing about how I have it configured.