The Goblin Box

It is now three weeks since the serpent started a certain taxation course. This is supposed to be a not so free pass out of house elf servitude and a feeble attempt to start a new life on The Dark Side

A true sign of the utter evilness was the requirement to be in possession of a Windoze laptop as the goblin software was incompatible with any other operating system. Most peeved indeed was the Izzie. Any cold hard cash to be spent on tech gadgets would have been better devoted to an upgrade of the ancient 2002 little red Nokia or preferably some cute bright shiny new tablet thingie.

So had been on the prowl since mid January for something cheap and cheerful with a deadline of two days before start of class on Thursday 21st February. The cute little silver touch screen ASUS 11 inch model that seemed the best compromise between portability, price and performance got a big F due to the absence of a DVD drive. Oh it was so easy to be tempted to upgrade from the under $500 budget to some bright shiny sparkly blingish thing but this serpent resisted. After all anything with Windoze would only ever be a Portkey of last resort due to the inherent awfulness

Had eyed up a couple of Acers but the geeks at Whirlpool said that anything from Acer is a pile of shit and they have appalling after sales service. They also like to indulge in dodgy cash back gimmicks. Been there and done that already with Apple back in 2005 and it left a most sour taste indeed

In the end had to settle for a Toshiba with an AMD processor even slower than the infamous Celery. After all this was supposed to be some basic workhorse model. Being windoze it would most definitely be not advisable to do much online due to the risk of all sorts of nasty viral infections. But Murphy’s Law declares that no matter how long and how hard you look the minute you buy some gadget it will be on sale a week later. Yesss. The very same computer was $50 cheaper the very next week in Dick Smith. But even worse they had a new ASUS model with a DVD drive with a proper Pentium Intel chip and 4GB ram for the same price the serpent paid for the pissy little AMD device. Was most peeved indeed

At this stage the class had already started and the teacher had gotten through three pages of putting stuff in the database while Izzie was still waiting for the infernal thing to load. Was ever so peeved. At this rate would need to turn the infernal thing on some 30 minutes before start of class. So along with the frustrating efforts at learning the ins and outs of Windoze 8 there was nothing but disdain for this infernal machine. The fact that another student also had problems getting the thing to start counted for nothing

Then finding the junk mail leaflets will all those Dick Smith specials two days later just added insult to injury. It was only the second visit to do the assigned homework that changed things a teeny weeny bit. This time it took less than a minute for the thing to load. Maybe the first time is different. So this nasty little black Goblin box turns out to be suitable for its intended purpose after all. But the one or two attempts at doing stuff online were an exercise in frustration. Could not install Google Chrome quick enough to avoid the awfulness that is Evilnet explorer and quick on this snailish goblin box turned out to be a good 40 minutes. But that could also be due to the wonderful internet connection courtesy of Vodafail

This Windoze 8 trail of trashy tiles was so obviously an attempt to catch up on the whole Smartphone apps thing. Even turning the infernal thing off is a bit of a ritual. It seems designed to be used as a touch screen and using the more basic laptop track pad is rather an exercise in frustration. Finding the path to invoke the off button is a right little ritual in itself. Its appearance seems to be rather random

Figured it might be possible to use this black goblin box for next month’s Camp Nano squiggling but then thinks that there is most likely no already installed word processing program. Not even some basic text edit gadget.
A bit more poking about revealed a pretty basic program that uses RTF so at least it is compatible with the Big Mac. There seems to be no autosave so that sucks. Must test transferring a few files with a USB stick before spending too much time with the thing
Anyway after becoming addicted to Scrivener, everything else is not worth the bother. Will stick to the tried and true rituals of plotting, planning. outlining and old fashioned emerald ink squiggling away from the desktop and then typing up the day’s inspiration some time at night.

The course itself is quite interesting. Was ever so amused at the special categories of tax deductions including the list of things that sex workers can claim against tax which include condoms, frilly knickers, make up, laundry and wages to pay bodyguards

It sure helps to be doing DIY tax returns for the last 19 plus years. Loving that the software that does all the hard work. Figured it might be a good idea to add a certain serpent to the database along with all the hypothetical homework clients. So adding bits as they come along meaning that for once there will be no last minute rush to have the infernal thing completed by the witching hour on 31st October. This week we were doing employment termination payments so that will be most relevant indeed

There are a handful of nuts in this class but will save that sad saga for another day. It is such a pity the text book and tax legislation that we are supposed to bring every week along with the laptop weigh half a ton. It means having to return straight to the Lair after the class to dump the infernal things
There’s a big barn garden store just across the road so it sucks the logistics of lugging all that stuff about makes a visit very impractical

The Goblin Box

It is now three weeks since the serpent started a certain taxation course. This is supposed to be a not so free pass out of house elf servitude and a feeble attempt to start a new life on The Dark Side

A true sign of the utter evilness was the requirement to be in possession of a Windoze laptop as the goblin software was incompatible with any other operating system. Most peeved indeed was the Izzie. Any cold hard cash to be spent on tech gadgets would have been better devoted to an upgrade of the ancient 2002 little red Nokia or preferably some cute bright shiny new tablet thingie.

So had been on the prowl since mid January for something cheap and cheerful with a deadline of two days before start of class on Thursday 21st February. The cute little silver touch screen ASUS 11 inch model that seemed the best compromise between portability, price and performance got a big F due to the absence of a DVD drive. Oh it was so easy to be tempted to upgrade from the under $500 budget to some bright shiny sparkly blingish thing but this serpent resisted. After all anything with Windoze would only ever be a Portkey of last resort due to the inherent awfulness

Had eyed up a couple of Acers but the geeks at Whirlpool said that anything from Acer is a pile of shit and they have appalling after sales service. They also like to indulge in dodgy cash back gimmicks. Been there and done that already with Apple back in 2005 and it left a most sour taste indeed

In the end had to settle for a Toshiba with an AMD processor even slower than the infamous Celery. After all this was supposed to be some basic workhorse model. Being windoze it would most definitely be not advisable to do much online due to the risk of all sorts of nasty viral infections. But Murphy’s Law declares that no matter how long and how hard you look the minute you buy some gadget it will be on sale a week later. Yesss. The very same computer was $50 cheaper the very next week in Dick Smith. But even worse they had a new ASUS model with a DVD drive with a proper Pentium Intel chip and 4GB ram for the same price the serpent paid for the pissy little AMD device. Was most peeved indeed

At this stage the class had already started and the teacher had gotten through three pages of putting stuff in the database while Izzie was still waiting for the infernal thing to load. Was ever so peeved. At this rate would need to turn the infernal thing on some 30 minutes before start of class. So along with the frustrating efforts at learning the ins and outs of Windoze 8 there was nothing but disdain for this infernal machine. The fact that another student also had problems getting the thing to start counted for nothing

Then finding the junk mail leaflets will all those Dick Smith specials two days later just added insult to injury. It was only the second visit to do the assigned homework that changed things a teeny weeny bit. This time it took less than a minute for the thing to load. Maybe the first time is different. So this nasty little black Goblin box turns out to be suitable for its intended purpose after all. But the one or two attempts at doing stuff online were an exercise in frustration. Could not install Google Chrome quick enough to avoid the awfulness that is Evilnet explorer and quick on this snailish goblin box turned out to be a good 40 minutes. But that could also be due to the wonderful internet connection courtesy of Vodafail

This Windoze 8 trail of trashy tiles was so obviously an attempt to catch up on the whole Smartphone apps thing. Even turning the infernal thing off is a bit of a ritual. It seems designed to be used as a touch screen and using the more basic laptop track pad is rather an exercise in frustration. Finding the path to invoke the off button is a right little ritual in itself. Its appearance seems to be rather random

Figured it might be possible to use this black goblin box for next month’s Camp Nano squiggling but then thinks that there is most likely no already installed word processing program. Not even some basic text edit gadget.
A bit more poking about revealed a pretty basic program that uses RTF so at least it is compatible with the Big Mac. There seems to be no autosave so that sucks. Must test transferring a few files with a USB stick before spending too much time with the thing
Anyway after becoming addicted to Scrivener, everything else is not worth the bother. Will stick to the tried and true rituals of plotting, planning. outlining and old fashioned emerald ink squiggling away from the desktop and then typing up the day’s inspiration some time at night.

The course itself is quite interesting. Was ever so amused at the special categories of tax deductions including the list of things that sex workers can claim against tax which include condoms, frilly knickers, make up, laundry and wages to pay bodyguards

It sure helps to be doing DIY tax returns for the last 19 plus years. Loving that the software that does all the hard work. Figured it might be a good idea to add a certain serpent to the database along with all the hypothetical homework clients. So adding bits as they come along meaning that for once there will be no last minute rush to have the infernal thing completed by the witching hour on 31st October. This week we were doing employment termination payments so that will be most relevant indeed

There are a handful of nuts in this class but will save that sad saga for another day. It is such a pity the text book and tax legislation that we are supposed to bring every week along with the laptop weigh half a ton. It means having to return straight to the Lair after the class to dump the infernal things
There’s a big barn garden store just across the road so it sucks the logistics of lugging all that stuff about makes a visit very impractical