ok- It’s official. Bring on the Leopard.

There is, of course, a good reason why I didn’t do it before. i just couldn’t afford the disruption to my workflow. I still bristle at the memory of upgrading to a new iMac. It was a rude awakening to find that CS2 no longer worked on my Intel iMac. Every shortcut, photoshop action, a casualty of "le dernier cri". My workflow slowed down to a crawl for about a month as i struggled to remember details to recreate the lost photoshop actions and keyboard shortcuts (not an easy task for someone with ADHD). I almost sought out therapy to help figure out how to live without Image Ready.

Oh. Image Ready. I still mourn your loss.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved Macromedia. I loved their apps unabashedly.  Flash is a wonder. Freehand better than Illustrator. I did, I loved all of them EXCEPT FIREWORKS. Damn you Fireworks for being the chosen one.

There are just too many cool apps out there i can’t use because of my stubbornness. Ironic Software’s Deep  & Fresh, Second Gear’s Check Off and. oh yes, Jumsoft’s Money3  to name a few.

I can no longer postpone the inevitable: I will have to upgrade to macOSx leopard 10.5.

Thank God I found a used copy for $80 on Amazon.
 

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We joined Entrecard a while back. I met Bill Weaver  of The Artist Center through Entrecard. He is doing a good thing- encouraging artists to find their niche market. We syndicate his web content with his permission.

For the most part I have ignored the whole Entrecard mishagoss. I really didn’t like the complication of clicking on card and then the next and then next.

After being on an upswing for most of 2008, our traffic started falling off the beginning of this year (2009). For the last few months, all the writers associated with DigitalAppleJuice have been working- yes, we really are working artists. So new content has been lean causing traffic to drop off which causes even more traffic to drop off since there is no one sharing our content with friends. No amount of SEO can make up for the dropoff in traffic.

One night late last week I received an email from Entrecard letting me know that there was an advert waiting for approval. While rooting around my dashboard, I happen somehow to run across mention of Firefox plugin for Entrecard.

Most definitely this Firefox plugin changed my attitude.
Download the Entrecard Toolbar

The Entrecard Toolbar for Firefox 3.x allows for easy access to your favorite list, drop inbox, and the directory of Entrecard members. It’s so easy in fact that I have become an inveterate dropper. I can click and watch TV and sometime I end up reading the blogs and saving them in my favorites list (which has grown dramatically since I got the Firefox plugin)

Some of My Latest Favorites:

http://mydailylist.blogspot.com/

The author of this site writes daily list in an effort to avoid brain rot.
Don’t miss his Dailylist Quiz: Are you a 19th century British author or a 21st century starlet?I laughed out loud. All by myself with only my art director cats as witnesses.

http://behindthebit.blogspot.com

I haven’t been on a horse since I was a teenager- life got in the way. I can almost recall the smell of leather and horse sweat and muck when I visit this site and get to live my alternate reality for a moment before moving on…

http://millcityfiasco.com/comic.php

Yep-i admit it- i’m a generic fan girl.
 

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 Life can be complicated.

This past weekend my air conditioning AND my dvd player died. Within the span of 4 hours.

Possible reasons:

1. Power Surge. Maybe. Things haven’t been quite right since Hurricane Ike dropped by for a visit last September (2008).  The phone line for my dsl needed replacement.

However, the surge suppresor built into our electric box remains intact (the light would have turned red if something had happened electrically).

2. Retrograde Pluto transiting my 2nd House (Values & Possessions: The second house and its occupants tell us about the material circumstances, the acquisitive urge and how we deal with possessions and material means.)

The disappointment was crushing-  we were looking at being hot and unconfortable AND we would be unable to watch the DVDs received in the mail: Ricky Gervais: Out Of England and OSS 117: Le Caire Nid d’Espions .

I survived the boredom of Hurricane Ike watching bootleg dvds of The Middleman. I had no intention of allowing some wicked cosmic interference thwart my plans on this particular weekend. Unlike Ike, this time we had power. We were able to plug in my 22 in Acer AL2216W (Max Resolution 1680 x 1050; Max Sync Rate (V x H) 76 Hz x 82 kHz; Image Aspect Ratio16:10) monitor to the laptop using a single link DVI to VGA adapter.  We then plugged JBL Duet speakers into the headphone plug on the laptop and we were good to go. We didn’t suffer too much.

I decided that I no longer want a dvd player. I don’t see the advantage at this time. This particular LG dvd player is less than 6 months old. It was purchased to replace the Coby dvd player we loved. We had found the unlock codes for that particular model Coby so we were region-free- able to watch movies unreleased in the USA. Roof damage caused by Ike claimed that lovely hard-working and VERY cheap dvd player as a casualty. We mourned.

For this LG to have died after less than 6 months leaves me speechless on the subject.

I am planning to use my laptop as my dvd player until I decide that some technological DVD advance makes it imperative that I purchase a new one. I just have to figure out which connection and adapter I need to make this happen.

First, I have to determine what connections are available to me and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each. This is a small overview of what connections are available to connect a Monitor or TV to a computer. Below each image is the Wikipedia link to information page to each.
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD15

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_dvi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi

There are more BUT these are the ones that are directly related to my variables. I did not include references to mini-HDMI.

My Apple PowerBook G4 1GHz Laptop (Part #: M9008LL/A) has an s-Video and DVI-I (integrated, digital & analog) dual link.

Our Norcent PT-4246HD 42" Plasma TV has the following specs:
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Resolution: 1024×768
Formats: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
Ports: 1 x RF Antenna-in
Ports: 1 x Composite Video In Rear
Ports: 1 x Composite Video In Side
Ports: 1 x Composite Audio/Video Out
Ports: 2 x
Ports: 1 x S-Video In Rear
Ports: 1 x S-Video In Side
Ports: 1 x HDMI-HDCP Digital A/V In
Ports: Audio In
Ports: 1 x 15-pin D-Sub (HD-15) VGA-in
Ports: 4 x Stereo Audio Line In
Ports: SPDIF Audio Out
Ports: RS-232
Ports: Headphone Jack

If I can avoid using sVideo  or componentVideo, I will. We spent  a couple of years watching  this plasma TV using these connections and didn’t notice the difference until we got the LG dvd player with an HDMI out. Then we realized what we had been missing.

I was also going to the HD15 VGA connection- while I already have everything I would need to make that happen, I wasn’t too impressed with the quality fo the video we were getting on the 22in monitor . I didn’t realize that there was also a s-Video connection on the back of the monitor and I wonder, even though sVideo is considered poor quality,  if I would have had better luck with that. My main concern is whether the laptop can push that much data… am i just being paranoid?

Today I plan to order a female HDMI to male Dual Link DVI adapter. I will update this post with a comparison sVideo v. HDMI.

Cables Unlimited ADP-3780 DVI-D Male to HDMI Female Adapter

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