New Blogger Template

I have a new Blogger Template!  

It all happened when I received an email last evening from Blogger about the new Designer Template.   When I first started blogging I picked a template called "Sand Dollar" from the new template selections.  I liked it except for the header photo showing up in the left margin - I couldn't get the header photo to be centered.  So image my surprise when I received this email telling me about new Blogger features.  I didn't know there was a Blogger draft mode that let one select the Designer Template tab where you could play with brand new templates.  But I thought let's give it a try.  I found this new template called "Watermark".  It was so easy to pick my new template and try different layouts, backgrounds and fonts (although I would have liked to have more fonts available) with the new template and apply my final selections to my blog.  I am so happy my header is more centered now.  I also made my first photo collage in Picasa and posted it here.  

How do you like my new Blogger template?

IKEA Laptop Table

I love my Apple MAC Laptop.  

It was great to use on my kitchen counter top if we were looking something up quickly but it was tiring if we spent any amount of time there.  It also worked well at the kitchen table if I was surfing or blogging until it was time to set the table for meals.   

Clearly I needed a table just for my laptop.  We looked at desks but they would have stuck out too far into the dinette area.  So, we journeyed to IKEA the other day to see what they had.  

This is our kitchen corner BEFORE photo:

Now the AFTER photos:

We had a small dresser in the corner.  After moving it out we had this blank space:

 Hubby started to install the new IKEA laptop table.

After bolting the support bracket to the wall hubby inserted the felt drawer.

And then put the top on.  This is the top in the closed position.

And this is the top in the open position with the black felt drawer showing.

  The pulled out position gives room for the computer top to open up.

And this is my computer laptop table all hooked up.

 The drawer holds light weight items:  a pencil, memo pad, camera thumb, portable backup hard drive and IntelliScanner (handheld unit that reads barcodes for inventory gathering).  

I have lots of natural light from the Pella French doors and I can watch TV too.  Now my dining table and kitchen counter are not cluttered with my laptop.  This laptop table doesn't intrude into the dinette area at all.   

I love it! 

FYI - Computer Updates!

As we know blogging is all about computers! 

 I have a MAC Apple laptop that I just love.  I can take it anywhere in the house to use - at the kitchen table, out on the porch or on my lap in the family room.  Yesterday I didn't post because my computer was TIED up.  My hubby updated our operating systems on our laptops - to the new Snow Leopard.  And he also installed new updates iLife and iWorks.  Now iLife included iPhoto 2009.  What a great program that is - it has a new features called "Faces" and "Places".  The photo edit program, iPhoto, can recognize faces and you can attach names.  You can call up any individual and find all photos with them in it.  The second fantastic feature is "Places".   Apparently new cameras now have a GPS feature so when you take a photo it attaches where (location) the photo was taken.  Is that cool or what!! Which means you can select any location (on a map) and see all photos attached to that location.  Now our cameras don't have that feature (YET) but for now the program lets you manually set the location on your photos too.  So when we are ready to update our cameras we will make sure we have the GPS feature.  

Now my computer is HAPPY!  

The other FYI is I bought "Print Shop" for my MAC.  I have a Windows card program on our old desktop PC but didn't have one for my MAC until now.  So, I'm a happy camper playing with all my new software.  I finally feel like I have a little understanding of how to do photos now for my MAC and load them into Blogger and/or Facebook.  Of course, without my hubby tech guy  none of this would be possible.  He does the work and I get to play.  

Happy Blogging to all of you.  

Do you get excited about your computer too?