Thursday, July 30, 2009

New Computer

I have a nice new MacBook. You'd be surprised how old my other Mac was. It was very out of date. Internet videos struggled, froze and jammed. But now I'm equipped to fully appreciate the modern world. Am doing this mainly by watching old glam and punk rock videos from the 70s on YouTube. Yes, it's a big step forward.

My other Macs have generally worked when I plugged them in, which was helpful. So, naturally, this one didn't. It failed to connect to the internet properly. I responded by looking disappointed, and saying "Why aren't you working? Start working properly." Then I sat and looked hopeless for a while, mumbling sadly to myself about how difficult everything is.

When this failed to produce results I phoned the Mac helpline, and to their credit, they sorted it out for me quickly. But it was a tense moment.

My old Mac, while very slow by today's standards, remains quite precious to me. I wrote a lot of Thraxas on it, and Lonely Werewolf Girl, and Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me. I also wrote Queen Vex on it, the sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl. This is more or less finished now. But don't get too excited, it will be around a year till it comes out. Which I find frustrating, but that's standard practice in publishing. However, the good news is that's it's already contracted to be published in Britain, the USA, and Germany, and the Italian contract should be sorted out soon.

Till I transfer over various files and software, I'm writing this blog on google documents. So it's not really even on my computer. Is that cloud computing? Hmm. Also alarmingly modern. I consider taking a little picture of myself with the camera in the computer, and putting it here. But when I check the picture, I think it makes me look old. Must be something wrong with the camera. Possibly I should phone the Mac helpline again. "The camera on my MacBook is making me look old. How can I fix this?"

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:24 pm

    They must have issued a faulty batch of Macbooks because I have the same trouble with the camera...

    /Ian

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:24 pm

    thank you for being you. you make me smile and indeed laugh. (your books are really hard to get in australia, i have to manipulate overseas relatives in order to lay my hands on them..just in case the mac helpline can solve this too..)
    xxx
    kirsten

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your blogs are good reading while I wait the year out for Queen Vex. Tee hee. Faulty camera. I was able to finally get Dollhouse because they released it this past Tuesday on DVD. I agree with you. Eliza is really great, but I think the storyline is a bit harsh for me and confusing. I've only watched 3 episodes so far. It's no Buffy, but at least Eliza/Faith/Echo is excellent. Best of luck with that new Mac. Can't wait to see the pic....

    Suzie

    ReplyDelete
  4. It probably makes your butt look big too...

    Seriously, this is great news about Queen Vex. Eagerly looking forward to it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I bet it would make my butt look big! Damned cameras.

    Suzie, glad you got hold of Dollhouse. I'm still enjoying it, and it does improve as the series goes on.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kirsten, I'm not sure what to say about getting my books in Australia. It's frustrating that they're hard to get hold of. I wonder if a book shop can order them? I really don't know if SoftSkull distribute there. I'll ask my agent if anything can be done about this.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anita5:42 am

    Hi Martin,
    Just thought I'd let you (and any stray Aussies) know that Galaxy Books in Sydney do carry some of your titles and they have a website that you can order books from as well so they could probably get copies for people here.
    Anita
    PS Cameras do make us look old unfortunately but photoshop makes us look young and lovely again. God bless photoshop.

    ReplyDelete