Androids And Apples And Apps And Accounts And Annoying Computers And Stuff

Ok ... so that is a good post title for a letter A post, as we go into Another round of ABC Wednesday ... so ... Ahh ... er ... now what do I actually SAY? lol

I guess I was thinking I should post about that stuff because it has All featured rather a lot in my life lately ;-)

note: As this post has become Awfully long ... feel free to just look at the pictures if you don't want to read All that stuff I have raved on About ;-)

Anyway ...
I am not quite sure where it all started ... maybe way back - when DH bought our first computer, almost 21 years ago? LOL

Actually ... this little quilt, that I made last year, kind of tells the story - in fact that is exactly what it was meant to be About ;-)

... the words sewn onto the background are all the things I started playing with/using, and in the Approximate order I discovered/started using them ...
The couple on the right are the ones not quite in order ... Fractint is a computer program (still around but was less complex, but took way longer to do stuff, back then) that draws fractals ... can't remember when i started messing around with that ... probably not long after we got the computer - whenever DH downoaded and installed it and told me about it ;-)
The digital camera came sometime later ... if I had to put it in between the other stuf it probably would go between geocities and google - I was already using e-mail and yahoo stuff by the time we got our first digital camera (and now my PHONE takes better photos than that camera could!) I probably could have added more stuff like using various photo editing software and stuff ... but I decided that "digital camera" could cover all that stuff too ;-)
For the first few years we had the internet ... which I think we had access to before html/the www - DH used to run a "bulletin board" where people could dial up and download/upload files and e-mail or something like that ... but once web browsers and stuff turned up - I started "surfing the web" every now and then ... not too often - because when I did - I would sit at the comptuer, get "lost in cyberspace" and then it would be 8 hours later! oops?! LOL (some things don't change much ;-)
At about the end of 1997 DH called me over to the computer and showed me how to use the e-mail program to send/read e-mails, and to read newsgroups ... and he "created a monster" LOL  - I found a quilting newsgroup (and a couple of others) and joined in ... then someone on there told me all about Scquilters (the Southern Cross Quilters e-mail list) and I joined that instead ... that later moved to "e-groups" which got taken over by yahoo to become yahoogroups ... sometime after joining scquilters I was looking at someone's quilt website on geocities and got curious and clicked the link to "get your own Geocities page" ... just to see what was involved in case I wanted to later ... a couple hours after I clicked - I was up way too late And I had a website on Geocities! LOL
Sometime over the next few years I also joined a few other e-mail lists ... one or 2 of those have died, all the others either were already on, or moved to, yahoogroups ... and I also used to do quite a lot of "surfing the net" ... and signed up for a pile of different free e-mail addresses and stuff (on sites that have mostly died since then) ... and sometime or another Yahoo, and a few other similar websites started to get not so good (free yahoo mail forwarding kind of ceased to happen, and yahoo bought Geocities and then later on the killed it) and Google got better and became the main search engine ... and I found blogger and started this blog ... a year or 2 before Google bought Blogger - lol
I am still active on a few yahoogroups ... and, after resisting it for a year or 2, I joined Facebook ... and Twitter ... but still didn't use them for a year or so ... but then I realised that a pile of people I know from the Scquilters yahoogroup are now hanging around on Facebook ... so I relented just over a year ago, and let one of them drag me in - lol   Then I found that a couple of them were messing around with Twitter, so I had a bit of a fiddle ... that was in the middle of last year sometime - which is when I made that quilt  ... Twitter is kind of where I got the title for the quilt, but I still didn't think I was likely to use it that much, because it didn't seem to be my thing ... nor did smart phones (which DH took me shopping for a few months ago, and  I kind of wondered why I had one for the first month or 2 ... but then I found out about the CSIROTweetup - LOL ... so I started using Twitter (and Facebook) on my phone, and on the iPad that DH had bought earlier in the year (another thing I wasn't sure I would use much, although I did use it for Gmail and Facebook while we went on a holiday in the middle of last year - I posted photos of all the different food we ate ;-)  funny thing is I think now I use the iPad more than he does - lol)  ... once I worked out how to use the thing, I also started using a heap of other apps on the phone - some that I found out about during the tweetup, and a few I have found since, and then when I went away for Christmas I started using a few things on the iPad (mail and e-books mostly).
I think in the last month or 2 I have probably spent more time on Twitter than on any of the other things! (but I have it set up so my tweets get posted on my facebook - lol)

er ... this has got rather long - and that was kind of only part of what the title of this post refers to!
I was also going to mention how, when I went up to visit Mum and Dad for Christmas/New Year, I spent quite a bit of time fiddling around with all that sort of stuff - because Mum bought an iPad just before I went up there, and she was having a few problems with her computer/e-mail ... and if you have not used Any Apple software or Anything with Apps or signed up to many things where you have online Accounts - it can take a bit to get one's head around it All ... and I am no expert either - I just play with it - LOL  ... but I ended up doing all sorts of odd stuff like using my phone as a wifi hotspot so mum could download iTunes and a big iPad software update (her dodgy internet plan did not have enough data left to use to do that, but my phone plan did ;-) and setting up e-mail stuff on her laptop (a fairly new one, not her first, but a different version of windoze that is a real pain to find how to do stuff in) and then setting up her new internet stuff - she changed from a wireless dongle on a network where she only had a bad signal, to a plan where she gets a lot more data for only a bit more money and has a little modem thingy that connects to 3g and is a wireless hotspot that she can connect either her laptop or her iPad to (which solved the problem of her wondering "should I have got a 3G one instead of just a wifi one?" - she can use her month's worth of data on either the laptop or the iPad rather than needing 2 different plans ;-) Trouble is - that stuff all had to be installed/set up/etc ... so Mum was glad I was there to help figure it all out - LOL
Also, while I was there to help set stuff up, Mum decided that seeing she had such Awful wireless reception from her ISP, she would change over to Another one instead (one that has better 3G coverage in her Area ;-)  ... so I ended up helping her find her way through the maze of Accounts and passwords, And had to explain All About how the Admin password was for the thingy that connects to the net and then sends out the wifi signal that her laptop and ipad need Another password to Access and that those are Additional to the password/login she needs to Access her Account/e-mail/etc on her ISP ... the sort of stuff that can be Absolutely confusing At first, but All makes sense once you get your head around it - probably All stuff that I have learnt About a lot more slowly over the years, while watching DH set all that sort of stuff up while I just used it All ;-)

... and this is where I Added a few ideas (below) for the rest of this post, then left it As it was for a few days (although I did just Add a few more words and stuff to the bit Above)

And maybe some Additional A stuff?

As if this blog post needs to be Any longer?!!!! ... Anything I might have Added, I will be Able to use next time Around the Alphabet - lol

Authors?! (the 2 I met on the Tweetup and how/why I am reading their books? ;-)

er ... yes I did want to mention that About now, but it will Also fit quite neatly in with what I am planning to do for my letter B post, so it will Be in there, if I get Around to Actually writing the B%^&#%& thing ;-)


Anyway ... this post is probably Awfully boring with so few photos ... so here is Another one:

"Aggie's pants" (Agapanthus) ... I took the photo, with my phone, a day or 2 ago, and I just noticed , as I was putting photos into an Album on the computer and choosing which one of  3 Agapanthus photos was going here, there is An Amazing thing About this photo - there is Also An Arachnid on the Agapanthus flowers! (the pink hand is pointing to it ;-) 

I Am sure I have some other Amazing photos I could put in here, but I keep getting lost on Twitter before I get Around to uploading them from the camera's memory card ... and I am not doing that now because DH and I are About to go out, As soon As he gets home from work (unless he has changed his mind since he rang me from work earlier today) - And I want to try and post this before I end up being too late ... Again 
(oops - he is home, hope I have not left Anything out/messed up, because I am About to post this As it is and hope it is at least mostly Alright ;-)

"Purple Mountain's Majesty"? - Looks Like Lavender To Me

I guess there is more to making something look majestic than just telling the browser to display it in a particular hexadecimal colour code - LOL
Ok - so what am I waffling on about this time?! - I found a link to Project 64 on someone else's ABC Wednesday post, and that looked fun too, so I posted something for that a week or 2 ago, then forgot about it until I went looking at my blog to see what photos I posted recently so I would not post the same ones again for my ABC Wednesday letter "R" post (which I was doing, but the photo uploading seems to have decided to work for a while then have a really big go slow) so I decided to see what colour Project 64 was after for this week, and noticed that if I get in quick enough (and the photo uploading actually works) I can post a photo or 3 of my Lavender bush for "Purple Mountains Majesty" which is this colour of Crayola crayon, #9D81BA, according to the colour lovers website ... (yes - working our way through the colours of Crayola's box of 64 crayons sounds like a weird idea for a meme - but I think it is a good one - LOL)
I also think it is a bit pale to keep typing in that colour (if it is too pale against my background colour and you can't read that bit - highlight it with the mouse and you should be able to read what it says - lol)

Actually ... when I went hunting in my photos, I found a whole pile of purple ones that are the right colour - but I posted most of them in my ABC Wendesday letter "P" post - here ;-)

These 2 were not in there though:

Diesel the dog next to the rather bushy lavender bush ... which I am sure I have a better photo of - have taken lots of close ups with bees and stuff, and I am sure I was looking at one I took of a butterfly on a flower, that is the right colour for this, just today ... but do you think I can find it now?!

I must like laveder bush colours - lavender/purple and grayish green - becuase I seen to und up using those colours in all sorts of odd things - including this experimenting with acrylic pains and hair gel that we did at the art quilt group I am part of (which I intend to post about on that blog sometime in the next week or 2)


Ok ... found the one I was looking for ;-)

a cabbage white butterfly on my lavender plant

and a photo of the whole plant, taken just after the butterfly one.

 But ... somehow I think this one I posted in that other blog post is the one I want to submit to the linky thingy for Project 64 ... who else is going to have a photo of a sky this colour?! ;-)

A rather weird coloured sky - and yes it really did look that colour - that is why I took the photo!!!



P.S. ... Probably not a dandelion ...

ok ...This colour is Probably a bit Pale to write my whole Post in ... but it is the Crayola colour "Dandelion" ...

ugh ... back to normal colours (I kind of had to hightlight the Dandelion colour with a dark grey background because it probably would not show up on my blog background ... but why the Dandelion? ... well - I fell over something called Project 64 and it looked like fun ... a bit like ABC Wednesday (which this could be a second letter P post for? or maybe we could just call it a Post script to the Previous one? lol), except with Project 64 they are working their way through 64 colours in a box of crayons. This week's colour is "Dandelion"  ... and I knew I would be able to find a photo with that colour in it ... so I decided to Pop in and Post something ;-)

banksia roses on someone's fence ... a bit pale actually, so not quite good enough for the Particular Picture that I Put in my link on there.

not dandelions, but some kind of daisy that has similar colours ... actually the petals are lighter and the middles darker ...



soggy wet flowers in my garden at night ... this is getting closer to the right colour ... so was the other photo, probably of the same flowers, but on a different night,  in my recent O post



ah why not - one can always rely on sunsets to produce a profusion of colours ;-)

I think the last one will do - I am sure the perfect match for "Dandelion" has to be somewhere in between the dark foreground and the blue sky ;-)

Perhaps I Should Post Something Interesting?

Actuallly I can Possibly think of a whole Pile of P things to Post (and ended up finding a Pile of Photos)  for a letter P Post for ABC Wednesday ... some of them are Probably not Particularly interesting to most, and a few could be downright Peculiar, but Perhaps most People will find at least some of them may, Perchance, Pique their interest ...

One thing I Particularly want to Put in here is this:
 I have a friend who has, over the last few years, Published some Particularly good/interesting blog Posts - about the People and Places she has been ... after enough people said to her "you should write a book" - she has done so! It is called "Pack and Follow" and she has Published it with one of those Print on demand type websites ... it can be found here - http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2578726
(perhaps I should Produce a book and Publish it? ... not sure anyone would want to read it though - lol)

I Put a (small) pile of ideas in here before I went and did other things, then came back a few days later ... so I will leave them in whatever colour the text defaults to, and add the rest in this Peculiar Pink ...

Peas +/or Pies  er ... yes - I like Peas and/or Pies ... and yes the "and/or" does mean I like either one, or both together ... I could go a Pie floater about now ;-)

Puppy
Pussycat
I have lots of photos and stuff about those in this blog ... Probably have enough other Photos to add to this Post that I don't need any more ...

have a Party and invite my Pants down ... the pants I was wearing at the time were a bit short ... they were second hand, and had shrunk a bit more too ... original Plan was to add some Patchwork or something to the bottoms, but I never got there ...

Pumpkin beetles - Piles of the things!
Actually they were/are not Pumpkin beetles (that was what one person I knew called them once, but after some quick research on the www I noticed that is not what they are ... they are soldier beetles ... in fact if they are the Particular species I think they are - they are known as "Plague soldier beetles" ... which kind of does describe them:


bazillions of beetles flying in from who knows where ...

beetles being beetles? ... with a blurry Patch (Possibly a finger Print) on the lens ... oops ... I wiped it off after that Photo, but this one was still better than the others to show close up detail of what the beetles look like.

not so close up of the beetles in the tree - this is our "street tree" - they are planted in front of most of the houses in our street ... I am not sure what they are, but later in the year they grow big brown seed Pods ...

beetles in the tree in the dark - when I got back from walking the dog ;-)


While walking the dog I also found a few more of what I thought were the same beetles flying around ... caught one to get another photo - and noticed they are not the same at all ... these are Lycid beetles:


Lycid beetle on some grass



Lycid beetle on my hand

 

oops ... I was trying to take a photo just before/as it flew off ... but ended up with what I often get instead - an empty hand/finger where the beetle/other flying insect WAS ... lol
(btw - the blue thing is the dog's lead ... dog is a blurry blob in this photo - just above my "pinky" finger)

 .. another day, another Pretty (or is this one also Peculiar?) colour ... (half those beetle photos uploaded then stopped, by which time I was off doing other things, so now it is the next day)
For those who want more information on those beetles/want to know what website I used to work out what they Probably are - I went to this Page - http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_beetles/index.html - the Lycid beetles and soldier beetles are about half way down the page.
btw ... what have beetles got to do with the letter P? ... nothing really, except I had heard someone call one that looked a bit like these 2 (but may have been another species of orange and/or green/black beetle ;-) a Pumpkin beetle ... but those are something else, and there are lots of web Pages about them because they are a garden Pest. That, and the fact that most black and yellow/organge insects are either Poisonous to eat, have a Poison sting, or are Pretending to be one of those that are ...

now for the other P Pictures I was Planning to Post:
(and some that I wasn't, but found while digging around in my Photos ;-)

purple sky ... I took the photo because it really did look that colour ... but it wasn't until I had Put it here that I noticed it is almost a Pefect match for the Purple text!



Pink bits on the trunk of a gum tree (Eucalyptus sp.)

 

Pink bottle bush and Purple .. er .. hardenbergia I think.

 

Pink Person ... I made 2 of these - one to keep, and one for a swap ... the @ was because I spend a lot of time online, and is even more apt now that i am on Twitter ( @UTLAU if you want to find/follow me there ;-)  but I made this before Twitter was even invented ... lol

Pincushions ... made at the quilt retreat I went on recently ... I wasn't going to make the hat one, but I just happened to have a circular bit of green fabric that was exactly the right size we needed (had to fit over an old CD) the other one at the top was meant to be a cupcake, but I had brown and yellow fabric and decided to make mine a Christmas themed chocolate cupcake with custard icing (hmmm I must try baking something like that one day - it could taste good ... or not ... lol) the other one was meant to be made with a lot bigger hexagons ... but me being me - I used really small ones, because I did not want a huge pincushion!

 

Pink (and black) gloves ... garden gloves I got from Aldi ... but bought because I think they will be quite good to use when doing machine quilting (they actually sell "quilting gloves" similar to this, but those cost a lot more money)



I took this Photo at work ... they often use Plasticiene in high school science classes, and sometimes I find Peculiar things when (if) it comes back ... (this lot has a blue Pony and a Pink snail shape and a Person ... lol)


Of course, Procrastinating about Posting this meant I had more days to Photograph a few more P things:

Pink flowers, Photographed while walking the dog ...

bright Pink bottlebrush flowers.

Pink and white and green leaves ... quite Pretty ;-)

the dog looking Pretty in the late afternoon sunlight
(instead of clouds with siver linings - a Golden Retriever with a golden lining? lol)

pink grevillias

Pink flowers ... quite Pretty, but some of these look a bit Peculiar

Purple daisys

bright Pink roses

red hot Pokers

a wattle tree with a Profusion of Pinkish looking Pods (and Pinkish looking leaves)

more Pink/Purple daisys

Peculiar Pinkish clouds

a Plot ... Part of a study of grass species or something ... in the nature Park I went on a walk in yesterday.
(I was Probably too busy taking Photos to Pay Proper attention to what the Person leading the walk was saying about these Plots ... ooops?)

Poo ... on a rock
(I am not sure why, but if I go somewhere that I end up taking more than just a few photos - I always seem to end up with at least one Poo Photo!)

a cow Pat - yes - another Poo!
(with a couple of tiny Pink flowers)

Pretty Purple flowers ... not sure what ... and no I did not Pick them - I had to Put my hand around them to stop them blowing around in the wind, so they were still enough to take the Photo

Pretty Prickles! (a scotch thistle)

Pink flowers, and pretty grass.

Peculiar flowers ...

more Prickles - this time on the Echidna that someone spotted over on the wall of the dam.

the Echidna near the Pond - after a few of us took photos it walked over to the grass and hid ... "I can't see you so you can't see me"? LOL

a Praying mantis on a Plantago Plant

Pink flowers on the edge of the driveway when I got home and Parked the car



and another photo of the soldier beetles ... not really a P photo - except they do look Pretty ;-)

I am sure I had a whole Pile of other P things I was going to Post about ... but after that Profusion of Photos ... maybe enough is enough?

I Pondered upon the idea of Posting a Picture of DD's Pigtails - she just got home, and was telling me all about how she got Pulled over by the Police (who were driving around doing random breath tests/etc) ... and how the Police officer gave her some Peculiar looks and they ended up having a Particularly long conversation about why she had Pigtails and how good they looked (and no - she did not get "Pinged" ... she tends to obey the speed limits and road rules, and doesn't drink and drive). I decided not to Put a Photo here though - it looked a bit Peculiar, and I can't be bothered Putting it onto the computer anyway ... not at "stupid o'clock" at night when I should have gone to bed 2 or 3 hours ago, because I have to go to work in the morning!

btw - as Per usual - clicking on a photo should take you to the lightbox thingy where you can look at all the photos, or a right click and choosing "open in new tab" (or new window) should take you to the original size version of that photo, if you want to see it bigger (yes - they are quite a bit bigger than they show up in here).

Many Marvelous Mixtures of Colours

I was going to post about "Lots of Lovely Colours" for my L post for ABC Wednesday ... but I kind of Lost the plot and Left it a Lot too Late ... and then came in here to do it and got Lost following Lots of Links (from Facebook) and ended up reading Lots of posts on one or 2 Lovely blogs ... then realised that I had Lost all of my evening and it was so Late at night that it was actually early - and I had yet again Lived up to my blog name ... and I was either going to still be awake finishing off the blog post when it gets Light ... or if I wait until Later I will have missed the chance to add my Link to the Linky thingy ...

so ... I had a Little think ...

and realised I could think of another name for it and Make the same thing become My M post instead ... which Means I still have a day or 2 to write it and Maybe I can share it at the same time as Most of the other ABC Wednesday M posts get shared :-)

So why was I going to post about colours anyway? ... well - someone Mentioned some Methods of choosing colours for their crochet projects, on the Australiacrochet yahoogroup - in fact one person Mentioned his rather interesting Method - he works as a nurse and is inspred by the colours of all the pills he has to give to patients! ... of course that got My Mind wandering ... and I ended up Madly taking photos of all sorts of odd things - just because they had interesting Mixtures/combinations of colours, and I figured I Might have to put them in a blog post ;-)

... of course it Might be a point to Move said photos from the Memory card to the computer (actually I usually copy them onto 2 different external hard drives - one is where the photos belong and the other is the backup for anything important (like photos ;-) then once I have got organised and made sure all the photos are happily living in both of those 2 places then I delete them from the memory cards) ... putting those photos on the computer was one of the things I came in here to do ... the other being writing my Late L post (which has now become this M post ;-) but Mucking about putting photos onto the computer takes ages, and so does uploading them all to blogger and writing captions or whatever ... and it Might be a good idea to actually go to bed before the sun comes up and/or DH gets home from night shift (good chance to get a few hours sleep without someone snoring beside me ... except the dog sometimes snores too, and he will probably sleep beside me ... possibly even ON the bed - LOL)

[a day or 2 goes by ... ]

... and another day or 5 go by as well - oops?

I Might just be able to sneak this in before it it too late to add my link - I have just put Most of the photos onto the computer (there are still some on the memory card that is still in the camera, but I think I have More than enough to put in here now, so they can stay there until later)

ok ... I think 30 photos might be enough! LOL



red bark chips and green grass etc.



wet fence - rain brings out the colours in things

green, red, blue, grey, brown, etc



blackberries - pretty greens and reds and stuff



green and pink grass ... with a bit of yellow and brown



more green/brown/yellow/red/etc



soft greens/greys/browns/etc



red/green/white/grey




food can be colourful too, so can cats and dogs
(the plate of food was on my lap ... it was yummy roast chicken (wrapped in bacon ;-)  and spud and vegetables and gravy ... and the dog and cat wanted it!)




brown, green, and yellow flowers




more browns and greens




er ... brown green grey yellow(ish) red ...




grey/blue/green/white/purple ... wisteria is pretty ;-)



brown/white/grey/green ... I love the heart shaped seed pods on this weed!



more browns/greys/greens




pinks and blue and more ...




more green/grey/brown - with a dash of yellow and red



lovely lavender - soft greyish greens and purples



a couple of cars adding some colour - lol




bits of buildings (I was actually trying to take photos of the cracks in the stuff on the windows ;-)




more building bits




and almost the same colours in bricks and ... water



blacks and greys in an old birds nest in a half dead banksia bush

lavender (again - but this time with a bee)



my stash often tells me what colours I am using - I just start digging stuff out and end up with something




... but I was actually digging that lot of yarn out for this!




these colours just sort of happened ... I started with the greener one, and then decided the "eyes" did not go (they were going to be another row around the edge of that rug) so they became the edge of another rug ... and a third one - lol




I was taking photos of spider webs under the pergola - but just noticed the bright colours




fruit, and shop signs - lol
btw - gee fruit is getting dear?! - no - actually this is a new supermarket near here - this was taken a few days before it opened, so they had not actually put the prices on everything yet, but it looked funny so I took a photo ;-)
The other funny thing is - this fruit is already in the shop, getting old, at least 2 days before it even opened - and they call themselves "the fresh food people" in their adverts! LOL




lovely lichen ;-)



... and last, but not least, a sunrise.
yes - I did say sunRISE ... I know - I don't blame people for assuming it is a sunSET - I see a lot more of those - usually the only time I am up at sunrise is if I have not been to bed yet ... but that day I was out at a quilt retreat and when one of my room mate's alarm went off (she wanted to get up early and do some sewing before breakfast!) I got up and went for a walk - and got to see a sundog! (that is what the bright dot to the left of the sun is)

I am not sure those colours will look that bright or eye catching in this post ... clicking to see them bigger might help ... but there does not have to be much of a colour in a photo to use it for ideas for a crochet/quilting/etc project ;-)

most (but not all) of those photos were taken just because I saw colours and I wanted to use them in this blog post ... I also took a whole pile that are not in here (at least twice as many more!) ... but I think 30 is enough!!! (a few were very similar to each other, and a few didn't actually look so good as a photo, but I probably could have added another 30 that I liked if I had wanted to ... and I could have taken dozens more, with even brighter colours, if I had gone to Floriade (the flower festival we have at this time every year here in Canberra - the one that has now finished/closed ... but they are leaving it set up for the Queen to come and see it on Thursday) .

er ... I had better post this and go to bed before I see another sunrise!!!
(it is after 3am, and I have to get up for work in the morning - oops?)

btw, I was going to add some links to a few good/interesting websites where I have played with colours ... but I didn't get to that - I might do that some other time - it will take a little while to dig them up - I have a couple in one of my older posts, and one I know about but might need to go hunting around for it on the blog/website I originally got the link from ...  maybe I could post about colour for the letter C?   (if I remember - lol)