Today Is Monday, It’s Always Monday, From Part II to V

The hard drive in my laptop is dying. So I turned it on at 6:30. It booted probably moments after I left to take the kid to school at 8:00. But… I figured no problem, I have finished the upgrade on my other machine, I’ll just get my mail there. The upgrade installed Gnome 3.8, from the 2.x versions. It comes up with an essentially blank screen. S l o w l y comes up.

It’s not blank, it has what looks like a curtain. I actually waited figuring the curtain might open theatrically and show me a desktop. It didn’t. Except for the clock there are exactly two things you can click on, one is something called “Activities” and the other is my user name. I clicked on “Activities” and fully 10 seconds tick by before it shows me a line of about a half dozen BIG ass icons. Exactly two of these are identifiable, Firefox and the file-cabinet icon of Nautilus. I never use Nautilus, if I want to play around with files, I use a terminal. I have discovered that, with the right tools (Windows doesn’t have them…), it is easier and more efficient to work with files by using all ten fingers than it is to use one finger and a wrist. Continue reading →