Lighten up

I've had a new daylight table lamp for my artwork, it was a bit pricey even at half price & amazingly heavy, luckily G helped out with carrying it to the car, I also have him to thank for driving me out to Hobbycraft to make my purchase, ordering on-line was just not immediate enough for me.

I worked with it virtually all yesterday as there was so little natural light, as I get older I find my eyes become tired in dim light, I'm not actually at the point where I need glasses to see close to yet (I'm short sighted so I'm dreading that extra complication), but my eyes are greedier for light than ever these days.


Another purchase I made this month that I'm very pleased with is an iPAQ Pocket PC. I bought my first handheld pc (A Palm) back in about 2000, and I loved it. Being able to scribble my notes anywhere and download them to my PC was great for someone with an overactive brain like myself, I also loved the idea that I could read the freebie out of copyright novels published by sites such as Project Guttenberg on such a tiny device. In 2004 I bought myself an iPAQ Pocket PC which was even better as the transfer of documents from handheld to PC was even simpler with the pocket version of Microsoft Word. Also, I could read fiction, poetry and even illustrated books on my device (and PC) using the free Microsoft e-Reader. A couple of years later I sold my beloved Pocket PC and the infra-red keyboard I'd bought for it for a few quid as I was in desperate financial straits. I regretted it over the years and so a few weeks ago, unable to afford one of the all singing dancing new models, I bought a model similar to my old one on Ebay.

Wonderful value, wonderful service (I had my new-old Pocket PC within days). Me and it haven't been separated since!

A lot of things have changed since I sold my old one, Avantgo, where I used to download freebie reads, has gone, and Microsoft seem to have frozen development of their e-reader, though it's still available to download and you can still get great freebie out of copyright reads from the likes of the University of Virginia's Digital library.

Also, with a little net mooching you can still find loads of games to download, some freebies, and many for just a few pounds. Not having the cash to treat myself to a Pocket DS (or a child to borrow one off!) these freebie games are a great cheap alternative. They're simple, pretty and quite addictive.