I’ve been having a totally lazy weekend, messing around with both laptops. I took off a lot of stuff I wouldn’t be needing anymore on my old laptop and today, I spent some time on the Apple website following their tutorials for Windows users moving to Mac. It’s all starting to make sense at last! Most of Saturday, I used my old laptop as I was using Paint Shop Pro and I was definitely starting to miss some of the power behind the Mac. I had a look at Boot Camp to see what would be involved in installing Vista on to my Mac but I really don’t feel the expense is worth it since I have another laptop sitting there. Maybe I’ll consider it one day but certainly not at the moment. LOL! Finally discovered how to do all those CTRL + shortcuts on the Mac. What are you betting I’ll start getting confused between them? I also ordered a new mouse because the one I’m using drags on the Mac and I can’t stand a slow, heavy mouse experience. I tried to get used to the Trackpad but it frustrates me! *pokes it*

Okay, I promise I’m not going to go on about my Mac on every post from now on… In other news, er, not much has been happening. I’ve been doing some Christmas shopping and sorted the kids out (nephews and niece) so there will be some major wrapping up coming soon. I’m on holiday for a couple of days in December for my birthday and I guess we will start putting up the decorations and doing some wrapping. It’s so cold here just now, it’s actually starting to feel like Christmas.

Believe it or not, our Christmas work night out was on Saturday, although many decided, including me, not to go. We have a new Social Committee who basically decided to change everything this year and a lot of people weren’t happy with the decisions. They left the Christmas booking too late which is why they ended up with a date in November, too early for most people. People at work just really get on my nerves after a while because they are always complaining about something and it is so hard not to get dragged down with their mood. I’ve been really moody lately and I really think I’m suffering from stress. I’m so tired when I get home, I can’t even be bothered having a conversation with anyone. *sigh*

The public in this country are all so damn rude as well and it takes an extreme effort on my part to remain civil on the phone sometimes. As for lawyers, don’t even get me started. Ignorant and stupid. They charge extortionate fees for nothing and moan when we throw their work back at them when it is wrong. What would happen if we ignored their errors and the documents proved not to be legal when the time came to use them? Morons. Yeah, we have so little to do, we deliberately go out of our way to make life hard for you.

Rant over. I’m off for a shower and intend to lose myself in a book. I’ve finished Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth and have just started her new book, Sepulchre.

Yay! I installed Leopard with absolutely no problems, although I suspect it is more down to Apple having already patched all the hiccups since the initial release. Either way, I’m happy. I already love some of the little things a Mac can do, like when you download a zip file and it has already unzipped by the time it downloads! So simple but so practical too! I’m still having to learn not to use my Windows shortcuts and of course I need to learn how to use Mac ones! I had to do a Google search to set up Textedit for editing my websites because I used to use Notepad before! Simple little things!

One of the biggest disappointments is that Paint Shop Pro doesn’t work on a Mac at all and it doesn’t look like it ever will. I use PSP for my pixel painting so it means I’m going to have to do all that on my old laptop. I also have to get a decent mouse because I just can’t get used to the trackpad at all, that’s not a criticism about the Mac, it’s a me thing.

I did manage to reformat my iPod so it is now dependent on my Mac for updates which will mean the updates will be easier. I had to transfer my music to my Mac before formatting and it did it at a lightning rate which totally impressed me. Unfortunately it only saved music I had purchased and now I’m going to have to re-load the albums I had transferred myself. I need my Bon Jovi!

I’ve already decided to keep my Mac as pristine as possible by not downloading a load of junk on to it! Let’s see if I keep to my promise!

WOO HOO! My Mac finally arrived today and I’ve been playing around with it. My biggest concern was that I wouldn’t be able to find anything because I’m so used to using a Windows system but everything seems so simple. There are a few things I’ve yet to discover and I also need to install Leopard but I’m saving that for the weekend. It’s all so elegant though and boy, is it quiet! My other laptop has a really noisy fan and it used to drive me crazy!

So far, I’m sticking with Safari because it seems to be doing all that I need although I have to admit to hating smooth fonts. I’m getting used to it though but I never used it on any of the other browsers. I have no idea if you can turn it off because I like viewing web pages the way they were made and now I’m stuck with the same font on every site - even my own! It just seems wierd to me. In Opera, you can tell it to use either your own style or render the web page as the creator intended which is what I prefer. Now, the Mac is dictating how a page looks and this might be a problem for me when I’m messing around with websites.

I bought the AirPort Express Base Station as well and it was so easy to set up, in fact it was less trouble than the Netgear one I used before. Thankfully, I managed to network the old laptop for internet use so there’s no worries there. I have a lot of stuff on my old laptop that I’m leaving there, such as photos and music, so I’m relieved it can connect with no problems. I tried networking the two laptops but it didn’t work - I think that exceeds my technical know-how.

So far, I’m quite taken with the Mac and there have been no problems whatsoever and I hope that doesn’t change when I add Leopard. I must admit I thought I was buying the Mac with Leopard already installed but I guess not! It will be the weekend before I can really give Mac a proper test drive though and get some of my stuff installed.

I just noticed my mouse doesn’t jump around like it did on the old one. I used to start typing something and before I knew it the cursor would jump into the middle of another sentence and I’d have to delete the mess. Some of the keys are in different places on the keyboard as well and for the life of me I can’t find the delete button and keep having to backspace. Some experimenting is in order!

The majority of the time I don’t give a fig about football and am hard pressed to understand why some people take it so seriously to the point of violence, however it was very hard to ignore the excitement over yesterday’s big match in Scotland. There were flags flying out of windows, strung up in gardens and trailing from cars. And there was the whole Strip for Scotland wherein you were to wear a Scotland football top and send positive vibes to the team on the big day. That was a relief because I thought it was another kind of stripping entirely and it is way too chilly for that in November!

The Scots were always going to be the underdogs but the manner in which they were beaten was nothing short of a tragedy. A Scots player is fouled and the referee gives a free kick to Italy which leads to them scoring the winning goal. I don’t know much about football rules but even I’m scratching my head at that one! What makes it even worse is this same referee has done this before to Scotland! When the free kick was given their was a deafening roar of disapproval from the Tartan Army and the referee made himself the most wanted man in the country for all the wrong reasons. It was like adding insult to injury because the Italians had already been caught spying on the Scottish team as they were training for the match in an example of poor sportsmanship.

During the match, the streets of the big cities were deserted as Scots gathered round their televisions or went down to their the local pub to watch the match. The Tartan Army were understandably disappointed by losing in such a way but it didn’t deter the party atmosphere and I suspect their will be a few sore heads this morning!

On 10 February 1991, fifteen year old Vicky Hamilton left her sister’s house to return home and was never seen again. A massive police hunt was launched and the disappearance became big news in my area; I remember posters were stuck up everywhere and everyone was talking about it. Vicky’s purse was found a few days later in Edinburgh and the police suspected the teenager had run away, especially after receiving various calls from people claiming to have seen her in London. The reports were all investigated but Vicky was never found. Vicky’s mum, adamant her daughter had no reason to run away, appeared on television numerous times pleading for Vicky to come home. Sadly, a broken-hearted Janette died in 1993, never knowing what had happened to her daughter.

Last year, Peter Tobin was arrested for the rape and murder of Polish student, Angelika Kluk, and during the investigation certain evidence came to light and Vicky’s case was re-opened. He was in fact charged with Vicky’s murder even though her body was never found. Over the past few months, police have been searching houses either owned or rented by Tobin and on Monday, a body was found in the garden of a house in Kent. Police believed they had found the body of a missing eighteen year old girl by the name of Dinah McLean but there was uncertainty as the belongings they found were not hers.

This afternoon, it was confirmed the body was Vicky Hamilton. After sixteen years, it looks like Vicky is finally coming home but not in the way her family had hoped. For their sake, I’m glad they finally know what happened to her but it’s all so sad.

The polar bears just weren’t working for me and I’m so tired of all the WP themes looking the same so I decided to buy a template from Gina at Creative Streak. I’ve admired her work from afar for a while now and this template fitted what I wanted so well - wintery but not Christmas-y. I’ve already warned her I may be back for more because I love how sophisticated her templates are without being too cluttered.

Speaking of clutter, I am sick to death of getting trackback spam from all those pay-per-post blogs. I hate adverts of any kind and I don’t understand people who buy domains to get away from adverts only to slap sponsored crap all over their blogs. I noticed a lot of those same people moaning they are being penalised from Google in their page rankings - either blog for yourself or don’t bother!