Okay so now might be a good time to update.
New laptop came in! It was very exciting and shiny as promised and I named it Kerral (one day I may run out of fictional characters to name computers after, but this will not be the year). Windows 7 is...well part of it is very nice and steam-lined, after my brief encounter with the wreckage that is Vista. Part of it is "omg so many unnecessary frills may it stop plz and yes, I spent most of the past few days in between my experiments turning off things and uninstalling things (all those "trial" and "starter" versions of software are very annoying, and clutter up the harddrive like you wouldn't believe). Windows 7 no longer supports the installation disc for my HP2210 xi printer/scanner/fax machine, but it does do the very linux thing of allowing you to pick and choose software / download needed drivers directly from sites so you don't need an additional interface software, which is very nice, in my opinion. Have got both scanner and tablet working now. Given this is my only working computer I've also installed both Firefox, Mufin Player, and Chrome (Firefox for work, Chrome for play and because I want to try it out, given how many of my professors, friends, and classmates have switched over, and it did not disappoint). The trial-Photoshop-Element was annoying, as was the trial-Office7. I'm running GIMP, Open Canvas, and Libre Office (Open Office after it got forked, yes) and depending on how Adobe is doing, I may either keep the Acrobat or switch to Jarnal. Have discovered the already installed (and free) version of Evernotes though, and am a little bit in love. It allows me to keep my daily lab notes (not the formal notes that the PI gets a copy of, but the daily scribbles of when I started an incubation and when it came out and such) in type (always neater and FASTER than scribbling), tag each notes like they blog posts (I've developed a system for tagging by the type of experiment), and lets me attach gel images, pdfs, and emails and screenshots (for the comp bio portion of my project, see) directly into each note. Which I have now organized into two different "notebooks". The only limitation so far is the size of the notes (they have online server to sync notebooks across computers) which is tallied in a monthly quota (so far I think it's within my range), and certain limitation in types of file that you can attach (I think I tried to attach an OpenOffice spreadsheet the other day and that didn't go), both of which are only increased/enabled if you get the premium account (of course). If there are other problems so far I have not encountered them.
Tally of info lost during Zen's crash is limited to the multimedia files Lucy gave me the last time she visited and anything else I downloaded between then and the crash. A few photos from my cellphone (but the bulk of the photos are in facebook so I suppose were I to feel particularly inspired --or bored -- one day I can re-download them), and a handful of both digital and scanned pencil sketches and I was working on. The last is the most devastating to me because lineart guys, it is painful. I don't want to do it again but at least I have my music and a shiny new laptop so on the whole life is still good.
Except for the fact that I need to go through over 100pages of scholarship app instruction "booklet" this weekend (why is it so long? I mean, seriously, why?) as well as try to figure out the newest part of the program for my comp bio that I can now finally run, which also came with a hefty (though somewhat shorter and definitely less dull) instruction manual. I will have about two hours of time tomorrow and am torn between spending it walking or scribbling furiously on my tablet. It will definitely need to be one of the two though, if only so I can keep going until the Greece trip without burning myself out before then.
Also, I'm getting fedex'ed crab cDNA next week, my mice are crazy, and I am possibly improperly curious about which is more flammable -- almond extract of rum-extract. (Can people really taste the rum-extract in cake? Does it make that much of a difference? What does liquor even do in terms of baking? It's like...okay...juice = weak acid, baking soda = weak base, and acid + base = water + salt + heat and then you add alcohol which is flammable and baking powder which can explode and then...I should go read my manuals now).
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