"I Just Work Here" presents: Allison Is Not Stupid
It's been mentioned before it is very common for victims of domestic violence to try and cover up or hide the abuse. What hasn't really been mentioned is how bad most of them are at it. Allison is not fooled.
I feel everyone deserves an update into the unexpected hiatus taken by IJWH. I'd originally intended for there to be a two-week break over the holidays. This got extended to about one month because both my laptop and my Wacom tablet died at almost the same time. The laptop was 8 years old, and, having far surpassed my hopes and aspirations for a laptop of its caliber finally decided 8 years was as good a time as any to give up the ghost. It did so promptly after the holidays, right as I was in the middle of several important comic-related things. I am sad to say several important comic-related things did not get done as a result, and it's going to be a struggle to get them done in the spare time I don't have.
After getting the new laptop (another Toshiba Satellite) I open it up to find two things: First, the techs who installed Windows 8.1 failed to ensure they were not installing software and files on bad patches of hard drive. All hard drives have these patches, and normally when the software gets installed a check is done to make sure there isn't any data on these patches.
That did not happen on my laptop.
Fortunately, Windows 8.1 has a software program that relocates the data and files from those patches, but while it's doing that you can hardly use the computer; it took all my computers CPU and disk processing to get that done, which rendered my computer pretty much useless for a few days. This meant I was unable to upload files, which is why there wasn't a notice sooner about the lack of updates. Once the laptop sorted itself out, I installed the old tablet, thinking I was in the clear....
At which point I found the issues I'd started seeing with the tablet on the old computer were not, in fact, caused exclusively by the age and crashing hard drive of the old computer. My tablet, my beautiful, wonderful, reliable Wacom Intuos 4 tablet was developing dead patches and the pen was glitching. A super helpful Wacom tech was able to alleviate some of the issues, but when I realized the issues were bad to the point I could not draw, I knew the game was up. I ordered a new tablet.
$540 and a few days later, my new Wacom Intuos Pro tablet arrived. And it is beautiful. I feel like I'm betraying my old tablet by saying this, but the Pro is already my new best friend. It has touch-screen capabilities, is even more sensitive than my old Intuos 4 and has an even larger drawing surface. There is nothing I don't like about this tablet.
In total all these upgrades cost about $900.
I guess, when it's all said and done there are worse things in life than having to start over with new equipment. I now have a state-of-the-art laptop and drawing tablet, making for a shiny new workspace. This will surely come in handly down the road. I would like to apologize for missing last week's update, and apologize in advance because there is a very real likelihood I will have to miss another update in the near future. I had major plans over the holidays for things that desperately need to be done, particularly involving the Bright Wolf Publishing website that did not get done, and I may need to take a weekend to do them.
But for now life is good, IJWH is back... And I must now go to bed.
It's been mentioned before it is very common for victims of domestic violence to try and cover up or hide the abuse. What hasn't really been mentioned is how bad most of them are at it. Allison is not fooled.
I feel everyone deserves an update into the unexpected hiatus taken by IJWH. I'd originally intended for there to be a two-week break over the holidays. This got extended to about one month because both my laptop and my Wacom tablet died at almost the same time. The laptop was 8 years old, and, having far surpassed my hopes and aspirations for a laptop of its caliber finally decided 8 years was as good a time as any to give up the ghost. It did so promptly after the holidays, right as I was in the middle of several important comic-related things. I am sad to say several important comic-related things did not get done as a result, and it's going to be a struggle to get them done in the spare time I don't have.
After getting the new laptop (another Toshiba Satellite) I open it up to find two things: First, the techs who installed Windows 8.1 failed to ensure they were not installing software and files on bad patches of hard drive. All hard drives have these patches, and normally when the software gets installed a check is done to make sure there isn't any data on these patches.
That did not happen on my laptop.
Fortunately, Windows 8.1 has a software program that relocates the data and files from those patches, but while it's doing that you can hardly use the computer; it took all my computers CPU and disk processing to get that done, which rendered my computer pretty much useless for a few days. This meant I was unable to upload files, which is why there wasn't a notice sooner about the lack of updates. Once the laptop sorted itself out, I installed the old tablet, thinking I was in the clear....
At which point I found the issues I'd started seeing with the tablet on the old computer were not, in fact, caused exclusively by the age and crashing hard drive of the old computer. My tablet, my beautiful, wonderful, reliable Wacom Intuos 4 tablet was developing dead patches and the pen was glitching. A super helpful Wacom tech was able to alleviate some of the issues, but when I realized the issues were bad to the point I could not draw, I knew the game was up. I ordered a new tablet.
$540 and a few days later, my new Wacom Intuos Pro tablet arrived. And it is beautiful. I feel like I'm betraying my old tablet by saying this, but the Pro is already my new best friend. It has touch-screen capabilities, is even more sensitive than my old Intuos 4 and has an even larger drawing surface. There is nothing I don't like about this tablet.
In total all these upgrades cost about $900.
I guess, when it's all said and done there are worse things in life than having to start over with new equipment. I now have a state-of-the-art laptop and drawing tablet, making for a shiny new workspace. This will surely come in handly down the road. I would like to apologize for missing last week's update, and apologize in advance because there is a very real likelihood I will have to miss another update in the near future. I had major plans over the holidays for things that desperately need to be done, particularly involving the Bright Wolf Publishing website that did not get done, and I may need to take a weekend to do them.
But for now life is good, IJWH is back... And I must now go to bed.