Three weeks now, about 200 hours: The cost of bad computer setup, even a small home unit like this one. It’s a Hewlett Packard/Compaq Mini-Tower 2200 with twin Intel processors and 300 GB: (not very small at all). With Windows XP Pro Sp2 installed from factory in Mexico – so it’s in Spanish which can be a nuisance for other reasons – I ordered and paid for MS Office (also in Spanish) which turned out to be a pirated version: The vendors, in Cordoba City, went out of business. It tanked along a couple of years but began to get slow and unpredictable. The bad Office went out and I repalced it with a legitimate one, on Office 97 I had from a previous machine. During the 2007 NaNoWriMo writers marathon it began to get really unstable, specially the Office installation: for a writer, the most basic. From Writers Village University I was clued to the alternative open source office suite:

Open Office: It is a wonder we use Microsoft.  Getting used to it can take a while, the Ways of Word are very ingrained. Open Office has a huge number of extra features and I see no reason for not making it the default suite here, but I’m not yet confident enough to use it for submissions on-line, where the finished product will probably be opened with Microsoft Word. Whatever, discovering Open Office has been the first big step forward.

Yesterday and the day before I may have found the second:  Ubuntu:

Quite amazing! It is the most friendly version of Linux / Unix I’ve ever had the pleasure of trying. The download took six hours! (about 630 megabytes) and this server actually managed to keep the connection live during all that time. I’ve been able to make a clean, error free, CD and It loads just fine. So now, as soon as I get on far enough with my writing commitments, I’ll see about installing it as the main Operating System on this computer.

But first:

• Get back to MFA and WVU. There I’ve left good friends and fine writers without contributing anything to that most excellent and brave course. Grumps, Susan, Raven, Joni and company…
• Maybe I’ll get back to the “Tales of Chestamovarado” and try and present some of it there.
• Jean Lauzier – The Book Tour will be in June. I Will have finished the next project by then (tentative working title “Plot Thickeners” but I see that is taken by another tutoring book, so will have to think of something else: A writer’s guide and cook book combined.

Tomorrow is crucial in this matter of the “property scam” we have fallen into (actually blundering into other peoples blunders is more like it). It seems we have good legal grounds to stave off the Golf owners claim that we should pay a 100% increase in the condo tax as well as their claim on supposed back payments, which are usury (in excess of three grand if they get their way, which of course is out of the question). But whatever the costs, we must avoid lawsuits (which in Argentina are another perpetual scam as neither judges or lawyers have any interest in the actual law). We will of course, be moving again. The only part of my own design that survived, the wood stove heated ‘loft’ is extremely comfortable, easy and economical to heat, so we’d aim at staying until this winter is over, at least.

Q