Correspondence and questions.
Jun. 16th, 2015 03:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateI have been fostering toddler correspondence-- so far the Megatherium and I have collectively written two rounds of thank-you notes to her paternal family, a card to my mother (which we then lost & just found again in time to mail it so she may not get it before going out of town, but whatever), two cards to her same-age proto-friend down the street, and now one to her other near-agemate from PA. We got an unrelated card from my mother, and a reply from Miss F, the text of which the Megatherium has very nearly memorized, with some deviations into her personal theories of grammar. This makes composition slightly more difficult, as when you ask her what she wants to write, she'll begin to recite it from the beginning.
My own correspondence is somewhat less prolific. However, I have built bookshelves for the living room (mostly; they're still getting trim) and fastened them to the walls and put books on them, which would have worked rather better if the interior wall of the house didn't tilt about three inches farther to the left at the top than it is at the bottom. So the tall shelf sits nicely where it ought at the bottom and collides with the curtain at the top, and I spent a few days glaring at it and throwing up my hands before just giving up and bolting it to the wall anyway. Grauwulf says we should glue a line level to one of the shelves to prove it's not my fault.
In other news, I finally gave up and upgraded to stupid-Yosemite, and it turns out that if you go directly from Snow Leopard then it doesn't paste in *all* of the stupid features from the intermediate systems. No launchpad, anyway. Still irritated over several features I don't seem to be able to turn off, but have restored most functionality. And then went and bought a new back-up drive, which helps too. Questions for those who have run this one already include:
*Is there any, any way to turn of the ---ing auto conversational threading in Mail? Or a similar but better email program that doesn't assume I want this?
*My FTP program and Microsoft Office were powerPC programs and no longer open. Anyone have recs for the former, or thoughts on new (ugh!) Office vs alternates? Apparently grauwulf has had ongoing problems with new Word crashing when he tries to save, so I'm a bit wary.
*Also, does anyone happen to know if they're still making the late-2008 model macbook pro battery? (I think mine is starting to swell up again, though it's still in the early stage) I just spent ten minutes searching the website where when I finally found a "go here to buy a battery" link it took me to outboard charging stuff. Unhelpful.
Also, if anyone is familiar with the Baltimore area, have you any suggestions on where to take and/or send grauwulf's mother & her husband when they're in town for a couple days? Apparently they have decided that we should figure out where they want to go & take them there, which is going to be interesting since I think they're here on a Monday & Tuesday, and grauwulf is going to have to work at least half days, and the Megatherium wants 2-3 hour afternoon naps, and there isn't room for four adults of whom I'm the smallest in my car with the giant car seat in it, even if we'd agree to share a car with that amount of cigarette smoke. Oh, and the Megatherium is still wary-to-terrified of men who aren't her father. Victory conditions=problematic. So far our list includes the aquarium, and dinner at the local restaurant we went to the last time they were here. They are probably not up for lots of active walking around. Thoughts? Anybody?
My own correspondence is somewhat less prolific. However, I have built bookshelves for the living room (mostly; they're still getting trim) and fastened them to the walls and put books on them, which would have worked rather better if the interior wall of the house didn't tilt about three inches farther to the left at the top than it is at the bottom. So the tall shelf sits nicely where it ought at the bottom and collides with the curtain at the top, and I spent a few days glaring at it and throwing up my hands before just giving up and bolting it to the wall anyway. Grauwulf says we should glue a line level to one of the shelves to prove it's not my fault.
In other news, I finally gave up and upgraded to stupid-Yosemite, and it turns out that if you go directly from Snow Leopard then it doesn't paste in *all* of the stupid features from the intermediate systems. No launchpad, anyway. Still irritated over several features I don't seem to be able to turn off, but have restored most functionality. And then went and bought a new back-up drive, which helps too. Questions for those who have run this one already include:
*Is there any, any way to turn of the ---ing auto conversational threading in Mail? Or a similar but better email program that doesn't assume I want this?
*My FTP program and Microsoft Office were powerPC programs and no longer open. Anyone have recs for the former, or thoughts on new (ugh!) Office vs alternates? Apparently grauwulf has had ongoing problems with new Word crashing when he tries to save, so I'm a bit wary.
*Also, does anyone happen to know if they're still making the late-2008 model macbook pro battery? (I think mine is starting to swell up again, though it's still in the early stage) I just spent ten minutes searching the website where when I finally found a "go here to buy a battery" link it took me to outboard charging stuff. Unhelpful.
Also, if anyone is familiar with the Baltimore area, have you any suggestions on where to take and/or send grauwulf's mother & her husband when they're in town for a couple days? Apparently they have decided that we should figure out where they want to go & take them there, which is going to be interesting since I think they're here on a Monday & Tuesday, and grauwulf is going to have to work at least half days, and the Megatherium wants 2-3 hour afternoon naps, and there isn't room for four adults of whom I'm the smallest in my car with the giant car seat in it, even if we'd agree to share a car with that amount of cigarette smoke. Oh, and the Megatherium is still wary-to-terrified of men who aren't her father. Victory conditions=problematic. So far our list includes the aquarium, and dinner at the local restaurant we went to the last time they were here. They are probably not up for lots of active walking around. Thoughts? Anybody?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-16 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-16 08:21 pm (UTC)Aw, crud. I have no idea (still on Mavericks myself) but I'd been planning on upgrading to El Cap this fall... but not if in introduces %&$ email threading. Am interested to hear if you come up with any better alternatives.
Office: I use LibreOffice, which is a more stable / less flaky OpenOffice. Awhile ago (months, not years) Charlie Stross was complaning about the latest version not being able to handle Word's Track Comments; I don't know if that's still an issue.
Battery: I'd be surprised. Last time I was in an Apple store I asked if they could replace my 2010 MBP battery and they said "no, take it to an authorised third-party place." At which point I decided I didn't care that much.