MAC stuff and Prosebox Tips chez Marg in Scottish Meanderings

I have now set up the new MAC and am desperately trying to persevere with using it regularly instead of my old pc. I miss all the bells and whistles of the old one - the different colours, fonts and general personalisation but I keep telling myself that's exactly how it was with Open Diary and Prosebox in the beginning and I'm now used to Prosebox and love its simplicity so perhaps the same will happen with the MAC.

There are still a few problems such as activating e-mail, taking over old e-mail folders, converting some files into something the MAC can read, reformatting some of my spreadsheets & so on but the good thing is that I have space to leave the old tower hidden at the side of a settee I have in the front bedroom and all I need to connect it is the monitor (it's quite small - a 14" one so easily transportable), mouse and keyboard which I can set up on the little TV table I have through there. So I can revert back to the old one any time if need be.

It's amazing how quickly we adapt though. Because I don't have an Apple keyboard and mouse my keyboard works okay but sometimes keys are swapped round, so for example, the '@' sign is where the " is and vice versa. When I previously held the 'Control' key at the same time as arrow keys or the 'home' or 'end' keys I could quickly get to the beginning of the last word or the top or the bottom of the page which was handy for deleting whole chunks of text or moving through text. That doesn't work now. But my brain has already adapted to those differences with ease as though I've been operating like this for ever.

And I'm having fun trying to pick out a photo to have as my desktop picture. We have one of the Canadian Skinners coming over to visit us in May this year and as part of the e-mails flying back and forth with the possible itinerary, some old photos were found from a previous visit in the 1970s. 66 of them were picked out but there was apparently trouble identifying folk in them so they were e-mailed to us (us being the now ancient generation of the family!) to see if we had any more luck.

So I decided on one of them as my desktop until the visit's over.

Here we have Mum, Rae (daughter of my great-uncle who had the bakers shop before Dad), me, Anne (Canadian aunt) and Margaret (Anne's niece).


Margaret is the one who is coming back over (Anne has passed). I'm not sure if she was ever diagnosed properly but she has something like Asperger's or high-functioning autism and has lived in supported accommodation for years. One of her cousins is travelling with her and they're planning to come up to Scotland as far as Edinburgh while they're over so I'm hoping I'll be well enough to go down and see her.

It's amazing how many memories can be evoked not only by a photo but by what folk are wearing! I can remember every piece of clothing and accessory I'm wearing in these photos - every single one - this one shows them better - very much the fashion of the seventies!!


I'm surprised I'm not carrying my 'magazine' clutch bag though. I thought I was the bees knees with that bag - it was a clutch bag in the shape of a rolled up magazine. Mike, my brother, had a shop off Carnaby Street at the time so would often send me the latest fashion before it had made its long, laborious journey up to the streets of the highlands of Scotland and I remember being delighted to get that bag - it was much admired. I would have been about 13 here so perhaps that birthday hadn't arrived yet. And those 'Ecru' tights! My staple leg coverings for years!!

I've noticed a few of you complaining about sometimes missing Favourites entries and wondered if the method I use would help.

When I want to check bookmarks I go to the unread bookmarks icon at the top of the page and when the list comes up, I click on the person's name I want to read. That way all the unread entries they've made shows so that I can see what I've missed. When I've read the first one I click on the blue 'Next' which brings up the next one then when I've read the last one and click on 'Next', the message will come up that the author has made no more entries. The good thing about that is that it will also take me back up to the top of the page. But now of course the icon has disappeared because it imagines you've read all the unread bookmarks. So then I go up to the Bookmarks menu and click on 'Unread Bookmarks' and repeat the whole process. That way I don't miss any entries.

The other thing I do, especially if someone has written a long entry, is start a comment in the comment box. So if for instance I think of something I want to say in paragraph 1 but know damned fine I'll have forgotten it by paragraph 6, I type it in the comment box then (on the phone) click 'done' and the keyboard disappears leaving me space to read the rest of the entry. On the computer I just scroll back up to where I was reading in the entry. When the next thing which I want to comment on occurs to me I'll go back down to the comment box and type it in then when I'm done click the 'Leave comment' box.

And occasionally an error will show when I'm trying to save a comment. I've found that if I click on the arrow to go back a page then click on the opposite arrow to go back to the page the entry is on, my comment will still be sitting there and will often save when I try again. Sometimes it doesn't though so what I do is copy the whole comment then refresh the page and paste it back in the comment box then click on 'Leave comment' - that always works. There is also sometimes a delay before the comment saves and it can look as if nothing is happening but if you wait a couple of seconds the comment appears. The temptation is to click on 'save comment' again and I'm wondering if that's how some people end up making duplicate comments?

If you find this happens to you it's very easy to delete any 'extra' comments. At the right of your comment there should be a padlock icon and an 'x' icon - if you click on the 'x' it will take you to a delete box where you can then get rid of the comment in question. I was initially put off doing that by reading that it will also delete any replies and thought it meant it would delete the whole conversation but it doesn't - only replies after the relevant comment (which of course won't exist as you haven't left your comment yet!).


Last Thursday I should have started counselling with a new client but she couldn't manage that week - however she can come this week so at 2.30 p.m. this Thursday I should be good to go. It was a bit disappointing, but only because I was a bit nervous about starting and would have liked to have got the first week over with and know I was back 'at the coal face' so to speak.

I'll get there eventually.