The New Install

As mentioned last week, I was able to get Windows installed on a new hard drive. It didn't happen over the weekend, but I made time for it. I thought it would be easier. Huh, I had problems. I needed to get into my motherboard BIOS. It would not show on my monitor, which is a power saving model. I thought maybe it wasn't powering up fast enough to show the brief BIOS screen. I thought maybe it was USB keyboard, and the BIOS wanted a PS2 adapter. I swapped in an old keyboard. I swapped in an old monitor. Etc. It was a hassle. It turned out to be the graphics tablet I have connected. The bootup screen was going to that instead of my monitor. When I turned it on, I was easily able to get into the BIOS. Which was of limited help. I needed to set up a dual boot system so I could boot the old hard drive and the new. It makes copying settings files and such easy. It doesn't really work. When I booted to the old drive, the new installation got hosed. I had to reinstall. The new Windows won't let me interact with the old Windows drive. The old Windows won't let me interact with the new drive. I'm looking at Microsoft with a displeased eye. It's causing me serious problems. Such as email.

So, I forced the old Windows to interact with one of the new drives. I have 2, one for Windows and one for programs. I'm wondering if that's what broke the new Windows. I'm going to try it again later with the old Windows and hope for the best but not touch the new one. I have an external drive that both Windowses can see with no problems at all. I'll have to use that for file swapping as best I can.

The good news is that the Windows key I bought in Europe works. I got it at MrKeyShop after seeing it recommended by Digital Trends. $44.04 instead of $129.

I still don't have all my software installed. I have browsers and simple email. Another good news is that I made a sync password for the browser I use for this blog. Otherwise...

I'm still downloading Unreal Engine that I want to use for doing book covers. It's a 100GB download. It's going to be a process getting back up and running, especially with the hard drive problems. I was hoping to have some pictures to show this week. Maybe next week.

Have a great weekend.

Unreal

My bank won't let me purchase things overseas with my debit card unless I call them first and request the restriction to be lifted for a day. I needed a Windows 10 key, but they're $130 or so in the U.S. In Europe they're $44.04. Long story short, after I still couldn't get the transaction to work even after calling the bank, I noticed the shop I was using had an Amazon Pay option. I looked it up. It lets you pay through Amazon with your debit card for no fee. It worked! I have my new Windows 10 Pro key.

Unreal Engine 5.x

Aside from the fact that Windows is slowly dying on my PC, I need to upgrade in order to run Unreal Engine. I don't have enough free disk space. For those not familiar with it, it's a piece of software that can be used to develop video games and make things like videos and still images. YouTube has some videos of things people have made with it. It can be quit amazing, especially Unreal Engine 5.2. One of the things I can use it for is making what I hope will be awesome book covers.

I've used the BigWorld game engine in the past while trying to help a startup company get up and running. The project turned out to be too big for a startup, and the company never took off. I'm hoping I'll be able to use those skills to stage book covers in Unreal Engine and possibly make trailer videos, although book covers would be enough.

With the Windows key, I'll be able to install a clean copy of Windows onto an SSD drive. My PC won't run Windows 11, and a  new PC is simply too expensive. So, for the cost of two SSD drives(one for Windows and one for software) and a Windows key, I can get a significant upgrade. One of the SSD drives is already here. I burned a Windows install disk before even trying to buy a key. All I need to do now is wait for the other drive to arrive tomorrow. If I don't run into any problems, I should be able to do the Windows install this weekend. After that I'd have to install all the software I use, which will take a long time.

For future upgrades, I could upgrade the CPU, the memory and the video card. Memory and CPU would give me relatively small improvements. The video card would be significant.

If the learning curve isn't too steep, there should be real book covers coming. I'd like to do the novella cover first and get it out the door. It depends on what I can do with Unreal.

Have a great weekend.

Meaningless Interlude

It's been a while. Last week something unusual happened. My internet connection was down. It's the fiber line that replaced the cell phone I was using that replaced the 1.5Mpbs dsl line that was the only other option where I live. The week before that I hit a wall with fatigue due to another sinus infection. I think I have another tooth abscess. Isn't that fun. It's kind of like it's one thing after another.

Other than that there's not a lot to report. It's been a somewhat negative month. I need a new computer, but it's too expensive at the moment. I'm thinking of buying a cheap OEM license for Windows 10 and an SSD drive and using my old components for an "upgrade". Why would I need a new Windows key? The computer I have now was one I bought "off lease" and upgraded. The company that leased it kept the Windows key for themselves. That's a violation of the license. It's my understanding that OEM licenses are supposed to stay with the first computer the OS is installed on.  Microsoft support literally wouldn't listen to me when in contacted them about it. I guess this happens all the time, and they don't care about customers. I also guess it didn't matter that I had a valid Windows 7 key I was using to upgrade but wouldn't work.

So, I might get a new license key and a new SSD drive now and upgrade the CPU and video card later. The problem with that is that Windows 11 only works on newer CPUs. There's kind of no point to upgrading the PC I have now(except the video card). However, Windows is slowly failing. I have no choice.

I'm hoping to get the novella out soon.

Have a great weekend.

Surreal

It was a bad week on the sleep front, which means it wasn't a good week on any front. There was also drama. I can't go into it today, but I will give some free advice, although I am not a lawyer. If someone you know adds you to the board of directors to a charity, which if formed would be illegal, without asking your permission or discussing it with you AFTER you've told the person that it would be illegal, kindly ask that person to take your name off of it. That's what I tried to do.

I asked ChatGPT, Is it legal to start a charity to fund a business in the United States?

ChatGPT4 said, No, it is not legal to start a charity to fund a business in the United States. Charities are required by law to serve a charitable purpose, which means that their primary goal must be to benefit the public good or a particular group of people in need. Funding a for-profit business does not meet this requirement.

Well, there you go. There was more, but that's all I needed to know.

I was added without permission or consultation to a charity that's forming with the primary goal of funding an LLC. When I wanted my name taken off it, I was attacked. Guess who the victim is? The person who did that behind my back. I am not making this up. Of course, there's more to it, but WOW.

I'm still slowly reworking my Etsy shop. I have most of my original items replaced with things I hope are much more marketable, but it's been slow going. Etsy's algorithm hates it. Views are definitely down this week. No sales. I'm basically starting over from the ground up, which I expected but still hurts.

Have a great weekend.

Touching Base 2

It was another week of working on the Etsy store. I had 14 products listed and no sales in over a month despite 100+ visits. Statistically, I should have had one sale per 100 visits, although new stores can take months to get the first sale. I decided to pivot. Part of that involves only listing digital items instead of print on demand items like posters, mouse pads, etc. It turns out to be rather time consuming. I have to make 7 files per listing plus multiple files for display purposes and a download link and such. I now have 10 listings of which only six are new products. I've deleted or de-listed several things. I'm slowly replacing the old inventory. I wanted to keep the number of listings at 14, but some items like posters don't match the new focus on digital items. I don't know if Etsy's algorithm likes the deletions and de-listings. Visits are down, but so is inventory. The goal is to have at least 30 items for sale by the end of the month and preferably more. Another goal is to set aside a certain amount of time per night to work on it instead of fretting about how long it takes to do everything and feeling like I'm not getting enough done.

Have a great weekend.

Touching Base

This week's blog is a nothing burger. There's nothing of significance to report. I'm still working on the Etsy store and facing headwinds with the legalese and paperwork type stuff for future listings. I think I'm close to having it all smoothed out so it can be easier and more automatic. Once it is, I can list new products more quickly and start deleting things that I didn't know enough not to list when I first started and didn't know enough. It's part of pivoting that I talked about last week.

Have a great weekend.

Time to Pivot

Sorry about missing last week. The high winds we had led to a power outage that ended up stealing my blog time. Today is merely cloudy with rain. There was one day this week with freak weather. It was at least 75F(23.89C), and it felt so good. It's 71 now and falling. Tomorrow it's back in the 50s.

This week was more struggle on the Etsy shop. I've had over 100 visits with no sales. Part of the problem is I have very few products, which was caused by my foray into Adobe stock art. I've had over $3 in sales on that. I've been reevaluating my Etsy store. Right now I have some digital art, posters and mouse pads. Another part of the problem is that people seem to be looking for digital art they can print instead of pre-printed posters. I've decided to pivot and focus on digital art the most and, down the line, maybe exclusively. This week I tried to figure out how to resize images without warping them. It should have been simple, but the application I was using ended up not working in Windows the way it does on a Mac. I spent literally hours online working on a fix that was not to be found. I don't have a Mac and have no interest in getting one even if I could afford it. So, I finally just re-scaled as best I could with Gimp. The warping is slight enough that I think it'll be okay.

Beyond that I was working on my boilerplate sales text for the images and an instruction sheet for customers. It sounds like it would be quick to do, but it never turns out that way in real life. Nevertheless, I'm close to being done, and once I am, I won't have to do it again. I can use the same text and instructions for every digital image in the store. Except the Samsung Frame TV images. I'll need to do a simpler version for that. It's a shame I don't have an affiliate link to that $1,499 product that's on sale for $1,199. Apparently, there's a market for digital art for it. In addition to the seven sizes of digital art for printing, I'll need one for that, too.

It occurred to me only this morning that I might could've used ChatGPT to make an instruction sheet. Hmm. Another struggle has been getting a mockup image for the digital art. It sounds easy, but it didn't work the way it was supposed to. Fortunately, the fix was relatively easy to find.

Have a great weekend.