Wednesday 14 February 2007

Pic of the day: Happy Valentine Day to all you lovey-dovey couples out there! Let us not forget that the intimate meeting of the soul of a man and woman is a spiritually transformative process... it is not like people get together just because they like the humping, of course! By now, your spirits are probably so transformed as to be barely recognizable... *snicker*

Non-Valentinous day

I went to North Corporation and handed them back the defective video card I got yesterday. They asked me to call them again in the afternoon. As if they would get anything done in 1 day when they had slumbered on the case for a month and a half. I promised to come back the next day, which I also will.

***

I went to the dentist. While the thought of looming judgment may have temporarily boosted my piety, it was surely not anywhere near the level of St. Valentine, or any other saint for that matter. Though the gut-wrenching nervousness may at least have been a reasonable facsimile of what many young boys go through on this day.

Zero holes, by the way, to the surprise of the dentist and me both. I have been using a different toothpaste this season, one that claims to protect the gums that would otherwise withdraw from the base of the teeth. This is indeed where my holes usually are, but I did not expect it to actually work. I mean, toothpaste is toothpaste, right? The wild claims written on the outside may vary, but it's just finely ground white stone, no matter how you look at it. Your teeth get their nourishment through their roots, not from the toothpaste.

But just in case, I intend to stick with the new toothpaste for the next half year too, which is how long it is till the next dental check. God willing, of course. I may not be a saint but there's no need for hubris.

***

Finally I ordered OneNote, a Microsoft program for disorganized information. It uses a different metaphor from the usual folders: OneNote consists of any number of notebooks, each with any number of tabs, and each tab with any number of pages. On the left hand side of the main workspace are the tabs that represent the notebooks. On top are the tabs within each notebook. And on the right, one tab for each page. You also have a stack of unsorted pages, which you can later collect into tabs or notebooks if there are many enough on one topic to make it worthwhile. You don't strictly need too, though, because of the extreme search capabilities, which can even look for a word inside a picture, a handwritten note or even recorded speech! I haven't tested it, of course. OneNote seems to be mostly a well hidden secret. Perhaps only a few people are disorganized enough to need it or want it.

Generally I have a much higher opinion on Microsoft than most people who talk about such things. In part it may be because I am old enough to remember when MS was David challenging the Goliath of IBM. But in part it is because frankly Microsoft makes good enough programs that people want to use, and that run on mass-produced computers. Later others come and make similar programs cheaper, or even free as happened with OpenOffice.org; but without Microsoft, many of the good things we take for granted would not have happened. Anyway, so far OneNote is the only of its kind. Innovation of things people need, or at least want. Go Microsoft. Of course, if I can get things better and/or cheaper elsewhere, I'm off. I am such an unfaithful lover... at least of software! ^^