Archives: emate

Cor – the kids all asleep as I left the house. I kinda miss not engaging with them – but Eve has the habit of rising too early & being perpetually tired on an evening. Things rather came to a head yesterday as they were all tired & we were tired & bedtime rather went to pot. Jack got mad with us & splashed Louise &would not calm down & do as he was told. It all ended in tears & hugs. hmm… at least no one was sick…
Oh – I realised how I might get my ramblings off the eMate yesterday. I need not worry about synchronisation for the moment (& having to actually read instructions – I can put that off – woo!). I can just email stuff off the eMate to myself. Tested & worked fine.

Um…
Louise said that they said that they’d like 20 Eve’s at playgroup…. Odd I thought – they want 20 mad things that jump about dangerously shout a lot & made silly noses? They must be bonkers! But of course this is home behaviour – not playgroup behaviour. I imagine that she shows her more compliant side there – but I can’t imagine the (grasps for right adjective but can only come up with…) lively nature is completely suppressed. I imagine there’s a glint in her eye at least, after all – it is alleged that she taught Andrea (playgroup adult) how to swing her hips.

Right – I know there’s a dozen anecdotes that Louise threw at me yesterday (not with the intention I’d be writing anything – she cares little for what I blather). It proves to me again that I cannot think straight in the mornings – but hey – it’s the only time I get.

um…
Well – I still have not managed to extract the files from my newton to OSX.
Bah
At least I can back things up onto a memory card now – but all the same – this is not good. I’m actually going to have to do some reading & research.
This is not to disparage OSX – I’ve never been able to get the blighter to work with a PC or the older mac in the office – so it’s… one of those things, perhaps. I could still bash away trying to do other connection type things, but I think reading would be good now.

Jude has been going through a few subtle changes of recent. There are a whole new slew of facial expressions, including a very good sneer; lots of ‘amazed’ & happy faces also. He’s starting to copy – I put my hand up at the dinner table & he copies from his high chair… & then everyone puts their hands up. He’s also moving around very deftly on his feet. He doesn’t balance properly yet – well – not for more than a few seconds anyway – so is not really near walking on his own yet.
Louise took Eve to the supermarket & the tacky Xmas decorations were up. She says Eve just exploded with excitement at it all. She was nearly screaming at Xmas…. Oh boy… she knows…
That reminds me – I really must get in touch with me dad about getting a lift down to Somerset for Xmas. If he can’t its getting time to book the train.

Poor little brain want more sleep.
Later I talk of…

Train home

hmm… does my brain work yet? I’ve been at work all day, but that does not mean…
Been up too late too much of recent – not really a good idea.
Why? Mostly just prating about. I have been trying to figure a way of getting files of this eMate & into OSX at home. Should all be logically easy – but I seem to have conspired against myself in an attempt to make things difficult. Hey ho.

Caroline came over for the day yesterday as well. She’s been oop north at a conference & opted to come over & see us. Stayed up too late again.
Should go bed earlier, but good company.
Silly
Stop now

Hah – this machine would hardly work this morning (the eMate on which I type) as I’d filled it so with all my waffling. I deleted a stack (to free up the memory stack). I’ll concede I need to look at deleting some apps I don’t really need either.

On Friday last week they came to fit the new windows in our house. They took just the one day to do it. They did rather a good job. It’s all rather gratifying. I was sceptical about moving to PVC double glazing, but it has made quite a difference to the aspect of the rooms – they seem much more light & airy without the heavy coloured wood of the previous windows. The Kitchen door is rather pleasant as well. We have not done the windows in there as we are looking to change the room round before we do that – but the door is such an improvement. We decided to have a big window on the door to let in more light & it works a treat.

Been quite a good weekend. Jack’s was a bit cocky on Saturday, but we put that down to the fact that he refused to have any breakfast. By the time we were going out he’d got himself cranky (& was demanding food – but we were going out!). Got present for Leila’s birthday party – forgot most things – back home & off to the party in the pouring rain. We arrived half an hour late, but it was the best we could manage & it was to little ill effect. Jack was not keen to join in musical bumps & other party games. Whether this was because we were late or because… it’s not what he likes (not a great one for competition sometimes – he comes over shy all of a sudden) I don’t know. He was happy enough to join in hide & seek & run around like a mad thing though. I wheezed about the place a bit as i had forgotten to bring my inhaler. I’ve been more reliant on it the last week after hardly using it for ages. I have a cough. Got soaked on the way home as the rain was even worse. Paced quite well as not to get too out of breath though.

Took Jack swimming on Sunday morning. He’s starting to have lessons – this being the second now. He really, really likes going swimming. He enjoys himself to the extent where he doesn’t really listen to the instructor sometimes. I have to strain my ears to listen to what she is saying. Did backstroke & practiced getting legs straight & kicking well – which Jack managed fine. I seem to recall that I was happier swimming on my back to start with. I never was that coordinated & it’s nice & simple on yer back. That breast stroke… eesh – all those odd arm & leg movements.

Off to Leeds for the afternoon – & pottered about very easily. Pleasant bit of consumerism & then home. Yeah – that went well.

Here sitting at work, typing on the emate.
Yeah… At ‘work’.
I do not normally do the Saturday morning shift, but then I will
have Monday off, so… better than working Monday in my opinion as
that’s a Sunday Shift (being Bank Holiday) & although I would
be in later, but also not be able to get home until later… &
I don’t want to be doing that! Keith normally does this shift – but
he’s on hols.
Just a longer week.
It’s not as busy, by any stretch of the imagination…

Train home… Well, that wasn’t too bad. A bit like the old days
before we took on more work & lost some staff. Was able to
concentrate on things for more than 5 minutes, which was a bonus.
Not bad. Train home cancelled, but the next one is fine. Meeting
Louise from the train to go to the supermarket so that we can get
that weekly shop out of the way. Insignificant details creep into
‘diary writing’. I wish I could filter better.
Eve woke a couple of times in the night. She’s cutting teeth
again. Canines this time, & they can be a little torturous.
It’s thrown her equilibrium a bit. For instance she had had an
afternoon nap yesterday, & was still grumpy when I got home
from work; delicate & not at all happy. Gave her a little
Calpol, & she brightened after that started working, so they
must have been giving her gyp.
Louise called work this morning at @ 8:30, & Jack was still
asleep! Wow – that must be one of his longer lie-ins ever! Why can
he not do that on weekdays… Mind you, when it comes to impending
school days, then there will be none of that. It’s gong to be a
fundamental change in the families daily routine

Heh… playing with the eMate again…
I’ve loaded an application called ‘newtscape’ – which is browser for the Newton OS. Catch being; it’s on the card, not the machine itself… & yet to use it on the internet I’d have to put the modem card in… DOH!
Hey, this does not worry! The theory is to look at it & try to figure out what to best use it for. The idea is to see if it assists in the writing of HTML – which it might look good for. Unexpectedly it has given me the option to save general documents as HTML… converting them to tagged text – which is useful. It’s play & familiarise time.
Jack woke up before I set off for work this morning. I heard the padding of feet across the hall upstairs as I was finishing my pint of tea at about 06:15. Met him at the top of the stairs & he asked me if it was Saturday (presumably I would be staying). Had to disappoint him. Told drowsing Louise he was downstairs as I went to give my daily “seeya/loveya” goodbye kiss. Left Jack snuggled in front of The Hoobs jumping about on the telly. He is going to be jiggered when I get home; he was awake in the night a little with his cough, & is probably a bit short on sleep in general at the moment because of that cough. He was tired yesterday evening, but coped well with it – was not an excessively grumpy & obstreperous.

Well – the new version of Newton ATA support is out, & despite yesterdays problems, it does seem a bit better. I managed to create error on the card yesterday. I think that adding to document stored on the card may not be such a bright idea at the moment. This is no big deal really, as it can be worked round. Difficult to say if that is where the problem lies, but time will tell. It is, after all software that has not yet reached the beta testing stage as yet. It works well – but there are the occasional upsets when the unexpected happens. I imagine it should be an essential for every Newton device when it’s complete. Imagine, being able to change the profile & functionality of the machine depending on what applications you have active in the additional memory stores. It can even act as a web server at the moment.. a handheld computer running the pages you view a website on, & with the potential capacity these cards can offer, it could be a substantial website.
Yeh – anyway… how are the kids getting on?
Well,I was saying the other day how much Eve seemed to have grown of recent… well, in the last couple of days her language has taken one of those ‘little leaps’ as well. There is more involvement in what she says. She is linking more words together. The problem is, at this stage, interpreting what she says. She does not really have crisp consonants, thus it can all sound a bit mumbly, even though she proclaims things loudly. Her words for things are not complete – ‘phan’ for elephant for instance. Hmmm trying to think of a long syllable word, I can only come up with dinosaur – which she nearly manages.
She woke up in the night , upset, last night. Louise went to her & she thinks that she must have been dreaming. She was not up for being consoled (heh – Jack is always, no matter what, up for a hug, whereas Eve, if she is mad & upset, will shrug away from a hug… this is a trait that Louise can do as well…). Eve was, through floods of tears, asking after Jack & I… but in the middle of it all wanting a tissue as well. Sweetie. She gets a tissue forced when she is upset to dab her tears & wipe her nose.
Jack has a cough at the moment. We were late to bed last night, & a we were dropping off to sleep, Jack roused from his room to join us in our room. His coughing kept us awake that little bit longer. Partly it’s concern for him, partly it’s the fact he’s leaning into you coughing into your ear. What with that, & Eve’s major upset an hour or so later, I’m feeling just that little more jaded than I should do today.

Lawks – I knew I would be neglecting making daily notes, but I’ve not been writing much at all. I have been using the eMate for writing, but I have managed to install a bit of new software that allow it to read an ATA flash card (with PCMCIA adapter) – so that I now have 4Mb of storage – wooo! Some teething things like it causing the eMate to ‘reboot’. Normally you can just open the lid of the eMate & start typing – it stays in ‘sleep mode’ while not in use, awaiting use. Don’t see a logical pattern to the reboots, but as the software is still in the Alpha testing (not even Beta testing before release) then it’s not really unexpected. The fact that it works is wonderful in itself… must get round to writing a thank you to the s/ware author…
Decorators did the ceiling. Took 2 days – one for the papering, & one for the painting & putting up of the border. All very pleasing & looking good. I say it took 2 days, but the man hours were considerably less – they didn’t hang about. The colour we ended up choosing for the ceiling was a little spur of the moment is a little more intense that we would have chosen. Yellow Ochre nearly. Bit lighter, naturally. Nice & warming, but leaves us with a quandry over what colour to do the walls. I had initially envisaged a light apricot colour – twixt ping & orange, however this is too ‘sherbet’ for Louise’s tastes. She seems to be leaning more to a linen colour – which is a bit too … ‘gray’ for me… sigh… As the ceiling is leaning more to an orange yellow that we initially realised, we may get some form of warm light yellow. Still at the ‘looking at samples’ stage.
I’m supposed to be decorating as well this ‘holiday’. Not had a lot of a chance thus far. Perhaps I will… at some stage. I’ve ‘primed’ the wall to which I am going to put some of that polystyrene wallpaper as an insulating under thing. We’ve decided that this is most likely what we need to cure the ‘cold spot’ on (presently our, but to be the kids) bedroom wall. Oh I did manage to tidy the kitchen ceiling a little as well & do a spot of ‘once in a blue moon’ tidying up while Jack was at school the other day.
Jack had ‘sports day’ on Friday -so I had to go to that! He did very well… all his class did because there was an awful lot of hanging around between races. We’ve just put a film in to be developed, so we’ve bought a new film… so I took a few pictures. Nice aspect – chaos of a few kids running at the camera. The sports day was held in the local park, so there’s the trees going up the hill at the back of the park in the background hopefully.

I feel as though I’m starting to be less ‘generally tired’ so, perhaps, I am starting to feel better. My head is no longer in a fog, & I seem to have some cognitive ability – perhaps even a little will to try to ‘get on top of things’.
I booked a little bit of holiday around Jack’s birthday today. The most likely thing is that I will be trying to sort out stuff around the house that I have not got time for in the normal day to day. Perhaps get the space in the attic sorted & the decorating restarted in what is our room, but will be the kids room. You can but hope, like.
I have real difficulty visualising the whole thing being done before the end of the year – but I really need to try to get it sorted in the summer months – which are now upon us! Drowning or waving?
I’ve been trying to sort my eMate out with the Ethernet card that I have. If you have tried to get your own newt (“Newton” is the name of the Operating System for the eMate) on Ethernet the guide for such a thing is at Chuma. I have followed the instructions there & got myself an allegedly compatible 3Comm card, but when I try to use it I get the error: “-61001 there was a problem with the card” – which is naturally a pisser. I have found some discussion on the error on archived message boards, but nothing as to reason or resolution. Still – I have no absolute concern over this as I can get my eMate & iMac to talk nowadays – & do the mail thing. I have noticed a rather pleasant development for newt owners in general in that someone is developing a driver to enable the use of Compact Flash Memory instead of the increasingly rare Flash memory cards that they currently are restricted to. Basically the sort of memory, that, say, a Digital Camera might use. A lot easier to get hold of & the capacity (amount of memory) could be quite respectable. Woo! Look forward to that when it’s finally released! If I could afford to splash out I’d do some ‘beta testing’ – & use the untested product.
hmmmm… makes a note to keep an eye out for a cheap PCMCIA Compact Flash Adapter on Ebay…

hehehehehe I got the eMate to collect email this morning… very gratifying… It didn’t work before, as I did not have the time to properly check over the internet setup on the machine to check that it was all sorted proper. worra laff… now then, what shall I do with it… dur….