What a day. This morning vanished in a welter of clothes-sorting and packing. This afternoon was dedicated to prepping the Macbook for my use when we are on the road. It is entirely possible that now, with a whole OU course ahead of me, is not the time to be climbing the Apple learning curve. Yes, I admit it… for all the years that we have had this machine, I have yet to engage with it. I dislike laptops at the best of times but the Macbook is an especially awkward beast. I refuse to use it unless I can have an external keyboard and mouse attached. Please. Dear. Are you listening? Yes? Listen harder!
My original purchase of Lightroom covers installation on two machines so that has already been loaded onto the Mac. Today I added the indispensable suite of Nik image editing software. I have a paid license for this so it galls me that it is now free.
That done, but with the plugins and imported filters yet to do, I turned my attention to setting up my academic account with Google on the lap top. Then installed Roboform Anywhere. I swiftly added the Kindle reader (NTS: Forgot Audible Manager!) and set up Chrome to my liking with AdBlocker etc. Then I checked the Student price on Microsoft Office. We agreed that £59.99, incl VAT for a four year licence including 60 Skype call minutes per month was a bit of a steal and that I should go for it.
I went around the houses a bit trying to find out just how I proved my student status (“This academic offer for eligible students, faculty, and staff requires verification of eligibility prior to purchase. 3“ — but no sign of a note to go with footnote 3) though it turned out in the end to be a simple matter of registering using my OU email address.
With the on-line version set up and the desktop download creeping onto the lappie, it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t paid. We spent ages going around in circles in an attempt to ascertain what product licence I had and how I was to pay for it. Mr L assumed a 30 Day trial to be paid for thereafter but I knew that I had not provided any payment details. The OU web site was no help at all. Masses of info, all of it old and all of it conflicting.
To cut a long story short, mainly because I do not want to get that dizzy again, it turns out that Microsoft Office is free for OU students. Not only that but the licence allows for installation onto up to 5 PCs or Macs, 5 Tablets and 5 Smartphones. Result.
Only now I am entirely punch drunk, with fifteen browser tabs open and no idea of where I am or where I have been.
I have no idea whatsoever what I am going to do with Publisher or Access or Powerpoint or… all I know is that I like having them once more. I like having shiny tecchy things that I can give the occasional virtual stroke to. Also, the inner Admin in me is loving the Planner app.
Ooh – also today, discovered that there is a Google/Chrome thingy that does what Wordle does and will generate a Word Cloud. I have yet to play with it but just had a little go and am very pleased it exists since Wordle won’t play nicely with Chrome and I always have to fire up the nasty e. This app won’t let me play with the colours though.
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