Category: Blog

I was going to get a laptop.  I keep trying to stay away from the Surface 2 Pro.   Most of the time, my Surface RT 2 does what I need when I'm out and about and it fits in my "Mary Poppins" bag.

Now I'm leaning towards a desktop — why?  I can remote into any of my computers just fine with the Surface.

I know I want 8 gig, just don't know if I want Dell or Lenovo.  Won't have to worry about odd wireless cards that way.

Will probably have three computers set up before I’m done.

I went to http://www.pchell.com/support/useremotedesktoptoaccessmultiplecomputers.shtml

to figure out most of it.  But I couldn’t figure out the firewall settings until I went here:

http://windows8.iyogi.com/8-1-blue/change-firewall-settings.html

Why?  I go out and about with my Surface RT and it can’t run programs.  Every once in a while I want to do something that Surface can’t.  Thus, I remote in, sort of what Scott Hanselman talked about here:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/UsingASurface2RTARMToGetActualWorkDoneRemoteDesktopVisualStudioAzure.aspx

I’ve done the Azure thing too, but right now it’s cheaper to use my own machines.

I’m getting used to it though.  My 19” monitor – several years old went out, and I bought a new one at Office Depot.  They had a 21” monitor for $119.99 but when I took the tag up to the cashier, he brought out a 23” monitor and said they were out of the 21”.

So I took it home (oh, and he charged me $119.99).

And I also discovered I didn’t quite have things back in my office – I actually knew I hadn’t bothered to put speakers on my 2nd PC upstairs – I know – some of you guys do a double or triple setup with one PC, but I prefer to work with Sygery and use multiple computers with my own clouds. 

Had a Windows Home Server for years, acquired a Buffalo server.  The WHS died, but I replaced it with a Iomega device, I keep expecting it to fail.  I recently got a Western Digital MyCloud which plays very nicely with my mobile devices.

Anyway, I got my speakers hooked up to the second PC again.

So tonight I was reading and following the Python Developers Guide and it said to install Sphinx.  I clicked on the link to Sphinx and it was down.

So then I went to #pyladies for help and someone told me to manually install it. 

Couldn’t get that to work so someone else came and said that all I had to do was to type in:

pip install Sphinx

It worked.

Seems there is a whole list of stuff at https://pypi.python.org/simple/ that you can install that way.  Better formatted at https://pypi.python.org/pypi

I brought home a really nice computer from BestBuy.  A Lenovo.   Only problem is that the wireless sucks.

I’m on wired and it is working very well.  Very fast computer.

I’m switching over to wireless, and we’ll see.

It’s a Lenovo U530, has 8gig of ram and 1T of hybrid drive.

And yes, that means the old computer went up on Ebay.

I’ve been downsizing.  I’ve already sold two machines. 

One was a Windows 8 Lenovo without a touch screen.  I bought it when my Sony failed.  It was cheap and I got most of my money back selling it on email.

I sold my Asus Touch Screen.  I got it when I got scared to move my Sony machine around – the touch screen cracked when I moved it.  It had a couple of dents, and I did pretty good on it.

By the way, I didn’t try to sell them on Ebay on myself.  I’ve never had much luck but the guy who runs my mailbox service does Ebay pretty extensively as http://www.ebay.com/usr/eaglepostalexpress972?_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2754 and I’ve been happy with the service.  Besides, he is already equipped to ship.

I’m trying to decide if I want to sell that Sony.

To start with I have a Lenovo Yoga 13 that works.  It doesn’t have a big hard drive, but then I have an extensive collection of Thumbdrives and External drives.  Yeah, said.  I am a neat hoarder with limits.  My problem is that I can’t stand to throw anything away.  Sometime because the next ham radio sell, I should go through, wipe them and then see if I can get someone to add them to their booth.

Back to the Sony.  Things don’t work right on.  I can do something on the Yoga but it doesn’t work on the laptop.  Plus I’m afraid the screen will crack again.

I’d like something that has as many pixels as my surface but with a huge hard drive.  I’m really looking for something that has a Hybrid Drive.  There are two Lenovo’s I really like.

Another option is just to make the Yoga my main computer and settle for the Surface as my going around computer.  Scott Hanselman would LOVE this model as it has regular HDMI output. 

So I wiped the Sony yesterday and trying to figure out if if the way I had it configured is the problem. 

I’ve worked maintenance for years, and our attitude was get it fixed fast.  I’m not sure if it is because I’m older, but it is introducing some mistakes.  I’m going to have to learn to slow down.

Oh, and in the education space, it is getting it done fast and worry about the errors later too, especially in grading.

Something I’ve just figured out on the Python stuff.  I’m used to following documentation line by line.  With the Python stuff, you need to read the WHOLE file, before you try again.

I’m wondering if it is because I come from the Windows world, that I don’t do that.

You also need to learn to look for “read me” files and read them.

I’m participating in the Outreach Program for Women.  Working on Python with Windows.

I’m made quite a bit of progress.

I’ve help close one bug already:

   http://bugs.python.org/issue20266 – though it’s being fixed by

   http://bugs.python.org/issue20265 – I’ve submitted a patch for this one and the patch has been reviewed once already

Now I working on http://bugs.python.org/issue17846#msg187810

   I have gotten Python to build with Visual Studio 2012 but it throws a ton of error messages, the first saying I don’t have SQLite on my machine.  I know that but I can’t figure out why Python still builds.

—

   Found it in the readme and in the document I’m supposed to be fixing. 

—

Best yet, I’ve figured out how to get rid of changes I’ve made and restore things from the repository.

Defining cool as:

Meeting very helpful people

Working on an interesting project

Knowing that my work will help the next guy

Learning new stuff

However, as I told the gal at the nail salon this morning:  “Yes, I’m a nerd and I’m okay with that.

I have been working on two pages of documentation for the Python project:

using/windows
    FAQ/windows

It has meant trying every link and fixing the broken links.  Installing Python on two Windows 7 machines and three Windows 8 machines and figuring out what was broken after the installation and fixing it.  Then writing documentation.

Also moving a section from using to FAQ

I’ve learned how to use the Python bug fixing tools (not sure what they are called), learning how to use their documentation program their patch program.  Also lots of other stuff.

Like I said: “cool”.

And the most satisfying work I’ve done since January.