I bought an HP 1030NR

Isn't it cute there under my desktop. I plodded through technical specs all over the place. Even tried to build my own on the Dell site and the HP site. By the time I added a few things, the $300 machine was costing $650. This particular model is not available on the HP website. All sources point to Best Buy or Ecost.com

But even after all my research, the best recommendation came from Cynthia Marie. She loves her Mini. My requirements are similar. I went for it. When I went to Best Buy yesterday, my mind wasn't completely made up, so I looked over the other Mini's on display. The ASUS and the Aspire were both stuck and not responding. The HP was running and zipping through the few internet sites I tried. The keyboard is bigger than the others on display. Keys are as big as a desktop keys. I bought it!

Best Buy was offering for an added $39.99, the same model "pre-setup" by the Geek Squad. I decided to do it myself, and it was easy. The hardest part was inserting the battery...I had it backwards...DOH! There is no excess software on the thing. I connected to my home network, let Microsoft do it's update thing, added McAfee Security (I had one remaining copy on my license for three), and Firefox (my favored browser). I folded laundry while various stuff was downloading.

I bought a sleeve for carrying. It will fit easily in my carry-on backpack for travel. And I got another jump-drive for moving files from my desktop.

One problem is the pointer device (mouse thingy). I have never been very good with pointer devices on laptops, from the eraser-head thing on IBM to various configurations of a track-pad. If I'm just doing straight text, I can function OK, but the Mini failed the Pet Society hurdle test. I couldn't click my Esmerelda when I needed to. I'll have to get an external mouse.

Does it pass the Pet Society requirement otherwise? I had to F-11 (I guess I need function keys after all) to get rid of the header stuff, and see my pet and her friends for the visits. I don't do much Pet Society on a real vacation anyway.



By the time we take our next big trip in November, I'll have it mastered. We will probably use the ship-board wi-fi hot spots on days at sea. The mini will decrease the time we have to struggle with those sticky keyboard on the ship's PC, and we can pre-type any long emails or blogs we want to post.

I'll even let Tinker use it.

Why I need a mini

1) It's in the genes! Gordons love gadgets. My brother George has one. Cynthia Marie has one. And I bet half of you reading this have one already. I'm late to the game.

2) Prices are really low! I've been doing my research only to find that the price doesn't mean a whole lot. The specifications are all over the map for that price. The hard drive might be anything from 150 gig to 8 gig. Eight gig? I carry 2 gig on my keychain! But I must remind myself that my very first PC had no hard-drive. The only application in those days was Lotus 1-2-3 run from an 8-inch floppy. And that PC cost as much as my new 1970 Subaru.

3) It would be easier to travel with a Mini. We have a notebook that we take with us sometimes. Mostly on roadtrips, and we took it on our big train trip. It's gotten to be too much of a hassle to get through airport security with the laptop since Tinker's hip replacement. He sets off the metal detector every time, and sometimes the security officer will help me with his stuff while they wand him down. Most of the time, though, I'm the one gathering up 2 pairs of shoes, two backpacks, coats, and the laptop too.

4) It would be cheaper than a Blackberry...no monthly fees.

But to be honest, it's really only #1. It's the gadget thing. I don't know why I need one otherwise. I don't hang out at Starbucks, or any of the other internet hot-spots around town. I could use it for writing when I travel, but I usually carry a paper notebook for sudden bursts of inspiration. Paper is easier to deal with by the pool at Bellagio, or on the beach. But I'm going to get one, anyway.

Now I need to decide what I want the thing to do. Do I need a copy of Word? a CD drive? how many USB ports? Headphone jack? Speaker jack? Some have keyboards with no F-keys. Do I need F-keys? When was the last time I used Function keys? I'm not going to play games on the thing. (Except Pet Society, of course) How much RAM do I need for Pet Society?

OK, friends who have one already, what do you have, and what do you like about it?

Welcome to guest blogger and author, Stacey Cochran

Thanks so much, Sarah, for the opportunity to guest blog at your place. I’m currently in the midst of a 45-day blog tour to promote my new novel CLAWS. Amazon has paperback copies listed for 10.99 and an Amazon Kindle version for $1.59. I need reviews to help generate word-of-mouth and interest in the book and its subject matter.

CLAWS came out of my living in Arizona earlier this decade. For a time, I rented a small bungalow in the mountain town of Oracle up on the north side of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Oracle, Arizona is a sleepy little town of about 2,000 folks, perched some 4,500 feet above sea level. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Coolidge some 60 miles northward. To the west, Tucson’s northern edge sprawls through a valley (and along the mountain foothills) up toward Catalina. From Oracle, the ten-mile-wide swath of development looks like a kind of disease spreading northward over the land.

In the short time that I lived there, two new “master-planned” golf course communities (SaddleBrooke and “The Preserve”) went up in what was previously high-country desert wilderness, and homes quickly replaced the natural landscape.

http://www.robson.com/page.cfm?name=SaddleBrk_

Coincidentally a careless camper’s man-made wildfire burned nearly 250,000 acres in the Santa Catalinas in 2003, and the following year several Tucson elementary schools had to be closed periodically because of mountain lions stalking children.

Ordinarily, mountain lions tend to avoid humans, but the wildfire had destroyed most of the big cat’s natural habitat. This forced the cougar population into areas it might not have ventured otherwise and because housing developments were going up almost monthly in this wilderness area, the result was a tragedy waiting to happen.

Once I began doing research, I saw that the problem was more than a regional anomaly. California had seen an increase in cougar attacks on humans over the past decade, and the animals were being spotted in states like Arkansas, Michigan, Illinois, and North Carolina were authorities had thought they were extinct.

The issues of wildlife management, land conservation, and real estate development are inextricably intertwined, and the decisions legislators make affect human (and cougar) lives. It’s a contentious issue that generates heated debate.

That said, I saw it as a way to write a suspenseful, timely novel that made the land one of its central characters.

My hope is that folks will get this when they read it. My challenge was to write CLAWS in a way that didn’t sermonize the issue, nor treat it glibly. One of the more interesting comments from early readers was that in the novel you could argue who was responsible for the problem.

I hope you’ll take the time to check out CLAWS and write a review at Amazon.com or on your blog. The subject is too important to ignore, and I think healthy discussion can lead to decisions regarding the right course of action.

I appreciate your time and consideration, and I hope you’ll enjoy the novel. Thanks so much, Sarah and friends.

My Mother's Day Gift

My sons came last Sunday and cooked dinner. Then we spent the rest of the day filming a video trailer for my book. Here is the finished product.