Final Word On The Problem.

Okay, so I can get the missing icons back if I just use the new interface, which I don't really have a problem with save that every time I open it, I get this banner up top telling me my browser isn't supported and I should try Chrome.
As I've said, I don't use Chrome because of a conflict that causes my PC to randomly restart. Evidence to prove this: Once I uninstalled Chrome, it never happened again. Correlation isn't causation, true, but a quick search in the forums showed I'm not alone in this; XP does not get along with Chrome, and random restarts are among the side effects.
Apart from that, though, why wouldn't the latest version of Opera be supported?

In any case, the time seems to have definitely come for me to do something about my PC situation. As of now, I'm still running XP on a rig I've had since 2005 with no real updates or upgrades beyond a new graphics card and a second disc drive. The biggest problem I'm having is that apart  from Opera and Skype, no application that requires an internet connection will work, including other web browsers. I think that, with all the Linux distros I've experimented with, on top of everything else I've used this computer for, the hard drive has simply had enough and needs to be replaced. I get error messages, but any attempts to fix them turn up negative, so I think we're dealing with an outright hardware failing. The same thing happened to my iMac once upon a time. It was funny when I took it in to get repaired; it had a 10GB hard drive and the store said the smallest drive they could replace it with (and not charge me an upgrade fee) was 30GB.

Anyway, the plan now is that I'll be replacing my hard drive and maybe even upgrading to Windows 7, but since it will most likely be the starter edition, I'll also re-install Jolicloud and switch between the two as needed. For some strange reason (upsell, upsell, upsell) the starter edition of Windows 7 does not allow you to set your own desktop wallpaper, but Jolicloud can. I intend to only use Windows 7 for non-web related activities, such as editing audio (and maybe video) and using my scanner. Jolicloud will be used entirely for running Opera and maybe Chrome (in case Blogger decides it doesn't like Opera, the uncultured swine that it is). I may also be upgrading the motherboard with one I've had lying around for a while (long story, don't ask). I've been planning at least one aspect of this plan for some time, but I've never gotten around to it. Instead, I've just been cautious about saving things and backing up my data whenever I think to. In any case, if I do replace my hard drive, it'll just be for safety sake as I intend to store most of my stuff onto flash drives, as I've done for years. When I was using my little Linux computer Sophia (also a long story not worth asking about), I had an 8GB thumb drive in the USB port at all times, only using the onboard hard drive (which was actually a compactflash card with a special adapter, something I may employ for this upgrade) for applications.

In the end, for as mad as I was, it wasn't so much at Blogger or Google as much as it was the fact that I don't like being told to make upgrades that I already intend to do regardless. Speaking of journals, though, we'll end this on something slightly different:

DeviantART's new journal feature just annoys me. They've essentially turned journals into literature uploads, complete with being able to give favorites and share options. My question, what about all those losers (they know who they are) who just post song lyrics or other things like that? Journals aren't art, they're a means for artists to talk to their audience, whether to give them important updates or just to shoot the breeze, they're not things to be placed in frames and hung upon the wall. The point of journals was that DeviantART users could essentially say anything they wanted with no fear of getting taken down, suspended, or even banned because the journal was just a kind of soapbox for people to have their little say in whatever they were on about. Now, by putting them on the same level as works of art, they're going to take away that relative safety. Journals can now get popular the same way paintings can, and that's not a good thing.

I know whenever DeviantART makes a change, there's always some huffing and puffing and melodrama about getting used to the change, and in the end, we get used to them, but this time, I think they may seriously have done something wrong, and I don't think they can undo it. We'll see.

Good night, and good luck.

Because I'm an Audiolog Fanatic

Since moving into a new place where we actually get a cell signal, I've been shopping around for a new phone as well as a new carrier. I was looking in the AT&T store and found myself trying out an iPhone. It's not the first time I tried one, but I only felt compelled to give it another go because I was waiting for a sales rep to finish with another customer. Without this turning into an anti-mac rant, I'll sum up my sentiments toward Apple in a single sentence: I've always maintained that Apple is a fitting name for the company because if there's one thing it excels at above all, it's polish.
Anyway...
I tried out the voice recorder application, the default one that comes with the device, as opposed to a third-party one like Night Recorder (which is actually kind of cute), so I wasn't expecting anything beyond what my current phone has. The interface consisted of an image of an old studio microphone, complete with a VU meter. On other side of the meter were two buttons, one for recording and pausing, the other to stop. When I first tried to make a recording, I wondered if the needle on the VU meter would move along with my voice. It didn't, but here's the part I don't get: when I tap the screen, the needle jumps.

The programmer made the VU meter touch-sensitive, but not sound-sensitive.

Why?

I mean, sure, the "Oscilloscope" image that appears on my phone when I press record is just a looped animation, but at least it only plays when I press record; it's not linked to another function or other part of the interface. However, making the VU meter only respond to tapping really just made me think at first that I wasn't being loud enough to get a rise out of the needle, which was preposterous given the noise level of the store in general.

It just strikes me as bad programming (not lazy programming, wherein the needle wouldn't have done anything at all) to go to the length of programming a VU meter's needle to respond to tapping a microphone (an image of a microphone, but one nonetheless) but be unaffected by the sound said "microphone" would hear.