i really do love my Mac but this is absurd

I’m in the middle of so many things at once. like a mailing list! OMG! I have an old list made with Apple Works, a Mac program and a new list made Address Book, another Mac Program.

Can get either to import the data from the other! Of course Not! Can I get either program to export something the other can read? of course not! Just because they are both basically data bases made on a a Mac. don’t be ridiculous!

So far i’m just printing out labels from the 2 programs. i also added all the names from the hall of flowers show.

i went to add the names of families who’s kids go to SOTA where my daughter goes. but i got overwhelmed – the mailing list is over 43 pages long and in PDF so it won’t simply import.

and i really don’t want to send out that many!

So i said – ok , just the Theatre students. (my daughter’s in Theatre.)

it was still too much, so i’m only 1/3 through the copy and paste. Maybe i’ll limit it to kids in her class …

the Sunset group has a really nice brochure. I’m sending these out to announce the Open Studio. I have such a gold mine in the list of people from SOTA that i think i’ll either buy more of the brochures or make a post card of my own. I like the brochure cuz it looks professional and makes it seem like a nice sized event. but the image for my piece is small. they all are cuz that’s the way it is with several artists and ads and all that.

I printed labels but could not figure how to do the return labels with the program i had so I downloaded this thing from Avery. what a disaster. i got it done, but it really should automatically repeat the one address. I was probably not paying attention. I also printed out a little blurb about my new work to stick inside. i wish i’d has some nice paper to print it on. But all my good stuff is too heavy.

i love my mac! but…

Unfortunately Address Book ( a native program on my Mac) just can’t get it right. It guesses what i mean to be typing, before i’ve even hesitated … as tho i actually want it’s help, and it goes right ahead an puts its guess there unless i actively delete it.

for example, I spell my name in lower case letters, but no one else in my family does. but if i attempt to type our last name in a field Address Book insists on making it lower case, even tho i started out with an upper case G. so i try to handle it by back spacing and adding a capitol G . but it lowers the case automatically. So i try to really fool it by adding an uppercase G between the lower case G and the rest of the name (this works with other programs) so i can go back and delete the lower case g after. But no, now it types the whole name in front of the new G so instead of “Garelick” I end out with gGarelickarelick. If i go ahead and leave it, it turns the new upper case G to a lower case.

what a waste of time.

then there’s guessing at first names. I have a friend named Jonah. guess what happens when i start an entry for my friend Jon. But do i notice? No cuz i hunt and peck so i’m not looking at the screen to see that Address Book has added info to the field when i didn’t ask it to.
and forget it for people named Michael. I have a relative Michael who’s married to Gretta (nice gal) so to save time i made their entry say Michael-Gretta. now Address Book adds -Gretta to every Michael i know, just by my action of tabbing to the next field. OMG it did this for a client and sent out an e-mail like that before i noticed that Address Book had added my friend’s wife to my clients name!

I hope you all find my examples amusing. I hope even more that someone will say – oh yeah they fixed that in May just go to the preferences and toss such and such file.

I love not depending on windoz

As I mentioned in an earlier post I don’t like having to use windoz to do things. I have to use my husband’s machine and, well, I’m just plain partial to my Mac (i love my mac! i love my mac! i love my mac!). So i was frustrated trying to post pictures here at blogger. Now i’m sure there are many ways around this but, as i understand it, to upload photos i have to use Hello, which is part of Picasa. these are all free programs that run on windows machines only. I had been testing Picasa and how it works with Hello and Blogger when i started this blog. So of course I was on my husband’s machine. But I don’t want to be there all the time, and my pictures are not on his machine so… to upload from there I have to move the pictures first, which is not that bad because i’ve networked the machines, but then i end up with extra copies all over. ugh. so I found a way around it. I have a silly blog at Xanga, just so i can make comment’s on my daughter’s Xanga site. But at Xanga, it’s easy to upload photos, so I uploaded the photos seen below and simply copied and pasted it’s link in a little html, dropped it into the blog editor and ta da! the photo shows up right smack in the middle of the post. Hurray for me!

Who wants to see my silly blog? OK here’s the link. http://www.xanga.com/kaylarus

trying to find a work around link to cancerwontkillshullady

I like this blog because I can make it look the way I want more than any other. I am testing blogs because i think that the over 50 population, like those in my digital photography class, will benefit from using blogs because the can communicate with friends and family in a creative way. I have a friend who is using a blog as a journal throughout her battle against breast cancer. It really seems to work for her both as a journalling tool and a way to keep everyone informed of her progress. For me this would be a great way to create an artist’s journal, but i have a technical difficulty that i must find a work around for. The usual way to post pictures is using picasa and hello. but those only work on a windoz box. which i could manage if i had to cuz after all my dear husband has one of those machines i love to hate like the bad girl in a soap opera. but i don’t want to! i take it as a personal challenge whenever i find something that won’t work with a mac! I think the work around is the link aspect. If i can upload the pictures anywhere on the web i will be able to link to it and it’ll show on my blog. well enough for today.