Developments

OK, I have been busier than a busy thing. This fact might be obvious, since I haven’t posted a thing here in over a month. Oops. Since then, Blogger has finally allowed me to switch over to my Google login to manage my blog. Just the ability to add tags is reason enough to celebrate. Still, I’m not sure that I want to give up posting my Technoratitags.

The good news: I am the proud owner of a new camera: a Canon EOS 30D. A friend bought my Rebel (Thanks, Jamie!), so I was able to upgrade. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of it. Coupled with Apple’s Aperture, I am growing quickly as a photographer. Still, I want a new lens: the Sigma 30mm F1.4. I’ll have to wait a bit, methinks, ’cause of the bad news.

The bad news: my PowerBook’s hard drive died. First, it stopped being able to install anything new, then it would take forever to download anything from Firefox, but it would still boot and run normally. Disk Utility told me there was a problem, so I booted off the Tiger install disk to try to fix the problem. It could not fix it; instead it seemed to supply the coffin’s final nail. Now, the PowerBook will no longer boot at all. I see the gray Apple screen with the wheely thing rotating at the bottom for about five minutes before the computer just shuts itself off. It seems I need a new PowerBook MacBook Pro. I’m thinking about the 15″, as if I can afford that. Until then, I’ll just use the department’s 17″ G4 PowerBook (slow and heavy) until a student requests to use it. (I’m not sure where it is…)

Computer woes aside, I have purchased some domain names, one I mentioned previously. Since purchasing grlucas.net, I now own Big Jelly (bigjelly.net), LitMUSE (litmuse.net), and the Humanities Index (humx.org). Here are my plans: this blog will soon be relocated to earthshine.org; when I say “soon,” I probably mean May at the earliest for professional reasons. I will continue to use Blogger, cause it’s cool and does exactly what I want without all the hassle of trying to keep up with Movable Type. Grlucas.net already has much of my portfolio on it, transferred from Earthshine. I will use it to feature one of my favorite things in life: me. LitMUSE will do what Earthshine used to do: operate as my courseware site for students; it’s already well underway.

I hope to use the Humanities Index as a collaborative space where educators can share notes on various aspects of literature for students. Here is where I will put all of my literary notes, ideas, and ramblings. I will encourage my colleagues to do the same. I really think this could be a worthwhile project. I’ve been porting entries from this blog over there, and I hope to have more there soon. Interested in contributing? Send me an email. And you don’t have to be a professional educator.

Now, Big Jelly should be interesting. It is the brainchild of Tom and me, based on the ideas in the eponymous short story by Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker. Like a big jelly, our ideas are kind of squishy and amorphous right now. We want a place to talk about science fiction and futurism and how these ideas wind in-and-out of one another and touch other cultural texts that interest us. We want to have round tables, reviews, essays, editorials, links, and anything else we think might be apropos. It’s as a place where old school meets new skool. There’s nothing there right now, but stay tuned.

I guess one of the most exciting things about these new domain names is that I have discovered a new web host: AN Hosting. Unlike the crappy support and services of IPowerWeb, I can host up to 10 domain names on one account, for about $30 less a year. Too cool, no? When I send tech support an email (no mandatory web forms to fill out), I usually have a response in under an hour. No kidding. It used to take IPowerWeb two days to send me some boilerplate that didn’t even answer my question or solve my problem. So far, I am very pleased with these new guys.

Now, to try to enjoy the rest of my break. Hope everyone is having a relaxing holiday.