Today's News and Weather Report

[la_samtyr]

Well, so far we have missed the worst of the storms, though that could change at any time. (I keep reminding myself of this because otherwise it's too easy to think no storms will come this way.) The snow we did get last week was not too bad, though most local schools were closed Thursday and Friday. We've had a little bit more since then but nothing major. Yesterday a lot of it melted off but today was too cold to do much melting.

Writing continues but slowly. Saturday I got a wireless mouse and I am working on my laptop now, which isn't too bad -- or at least it wouldn't be, if I could keep the cursor from jumping around all over and cutting into the wrong sentences/paragraphs. Nothing is worse than typing along only to discover that half the sentence has gone elsewhere. I am sure it is because I keep hitting the wrong keys on the laptop keyboard but unfortunately, I will just have to shut up and deal. but -- one of the pluses is that I now have spell-check again! :) [Because yes, even though spell-check is supposedly 'on' for my desktop, it isn't registering properly. Go me.] I'm also trying to get back in the overall mood I was in before my desktop decided on the latest tantrum. But there is progress -- just not as much as I had hoped for. And of course I am getting all sorts of ideas for everything but the story I am supposed to be working on. ::dramatic sigh::

One thing I do wish I had was a quick way to add in various names and other words from Tolkien to the dictionary section. All of the umlauts and other accents are hard to add properly. The umlauts are easy to spot but with names like Cirdan and Celebrian, I have a hard time being sure if the 'i' has an accent or not. And yes, I know they do but honestly? it doesn't always look like it.

Ok, time for me to switch computers again and see what sort of progress I can make .

Ttyl!

Comments

[boltonia.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, typing on the laptop can be interesting. Your cursor is jumping to other lines probably because you're accidentally brushing the mouse pad on the keyboard while you type. That happens to me all the time. My mouse pad had an on/off button so maybe you can turn it off since you're using a wireless mouse?

As for the punctuation trials, maybe put all the names you're using in a notepad file and copy/paste as you go? Or write without the correct punctiations, then do a find/replace periodically?

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can turn the mousepad off. I've looked but so far no luck.

So far I am copy/pasting words and then using spell-check. It helps but I wish there was a quicker way.

[engarian.livejournal.com]

What writing program are you using? I bless my custom dictionary - it catches all of the special characters that crop up in my writing. Unfortunately I can only access it in one of the programs I use, but it's fairly easy to plug the story into it for a final run-through before I actually publish.

- Erulisse (one L)

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

Right now I am using Word but it seems there ought to be a custom dictionary for Tolkien. It would be lovely if there were!

[engarian.livejournal.com]

Here's an idea - what about if, in April after B2ME is complete, you put a call-out for everyone to post their own custom dictionaries related to Tolkien. These could be combined, the duplicates and/or misspellings could be eliminated, and voila! your custom dictionary would be available for you as well as for others to share. I know that I always have to run a story through in word to catch these in my own custom dictionary, but there are characters I rarely mention that I seem to have to always look up.

- Erulisse (one L)

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

That is an excellent idea. I think I will do just that. Thank you for the suggestion. :)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I use a tiny mouse on the left front of my laptop (being left-handed) and have to be so careful not to have the mouse activate the touchpad! I also have a bad habit of having the front of the mouse stray onto the Windows key and the Alt key together - which, as alt/windows is a non-existent command, crashes the whole thing. Every time.

I just added all the names, with their accents, to the dictionary on Word on my laptop by copying and pasting them in from the Encyclopaedia of Arda, adding them to the dictionary, then typing them spelt correctly but without the accents and instructing it to then auto-correct to the newly added version every time I write them. It wasn't all that long-winded.

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I was very spoiled by my first laptop -- an old Me -- that I had set up perfectly. Unfortunately, when I was forced to upgrade to a new one, it seems like I have been trying to play catch-up ever since.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

My text tends to jump around on my laptop too.I've never found out why.

For accents ect, I just paste one of my stories, which features names I use often such as Eowyn(with accent) into Word then use the spell checker and add all the names to to dictionary when it attempts to correct them.

I also set auto correct to change none accented names to accented ones. I type Eowyn and Word automatically adds the accent.

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I wish I knew why the cursor seems to be so 'floaty' on the laptop. The worst of it is that I never seem able to figure out what *might* be causing it. I'm hoping that a computer course can help with that.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

If you ever find out,please let me know!
Just googled and found this
http://ask-a-geek.com/2011/03/when-i-type-with-my-laptop-the-cursor-keeps-jumping-around-and-i-overwrite-things-ive-already-written-what-is-going-on/

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the link! That really did help quite a bit although I never have figured out how to turn the internal mouse or keyboard completely off.

[chaotic-binky.livejournal.com]

I loved my laptop but the keyboard was impossible and very hard to use properly. I hope you can get your computer problems resolved so that you don't have to use the laptop.

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I don't really mind the laptop too much -- it is handy but being unable to write the way I want to is a real PITA.