Incoherent Scribblings

Dear Makers of SmartFTP,

I understand the need for a company to make money. However, I am sadly disappointed that you have decided to abandon the majority of your users (educational institutions and poor graduate students) in favor of the all-mighty dollar.

I have used the freeware version of your product since I cut my FTP baby teeth using version 1.X to learn FTP basics as a poor graduate student. However, I recently learned that you have decided to do away with the free version for private and educational use. Professional software is expensive and for those of us who need professional software but work in education (an area that the government is always quick to cut) it is a great disservice to begin charging this segment of your user population. In an era where open source software is quickly coming of age, it seems a better business model would be to expand your free product, not do away with it.

Thanks for memories SmartFTP, but I am afraid I will be re-investigating my free FTP options.

FireFTP here I come!

Sincerely,
Renée, education professional and part-time poor graduate student.

In addition to having class last week, I have been going through a bit of a stitching slump for almost the past month. My stitching hasn’t come to a stop, but it has definitely been in slow motion lately!

During this little slump, I have been pacifying myself by knitting, but since last weekend was SAT weekend I thought I would start a little something new and see if I could get motivated again. I am not sure I am completely re-motivated (which is probably OK seeing as I need to spend most of my time focused on my studies for the next few weeks), but I at least had a successful SAT with this little happy dance.

French Country – Cat
by JBW Designs
June 20, 2008 – June 23, 2008
30 count White Evenweave
Unknown Anchor Variegated

I really like this design and can see myself stitching it over and over again. But for now I need to get back to studying for my Romantic Poetry exam tomorrow! Ta!

Today’s SBQ is:

Do you currently subscribe to any stitching publications or have you in the past? (Either in print or online) If so, which ones?

Yes I do and I have.

I recently subscribed to Just Cross Stitch on a whim. I was flipping though one of my Ornie issues one night when a subscription card fell into my lap so I filled it out and dropped it in the mailbox the next morning. I have only received two issues so I can’t really give a solid opinion on whether or not my subscription is worth it yet, but I will say that so far I have seen things in both issues that I might think about stitching.

In 2006, when I was living in Germany, I subscribed to The World of Cross Stitching and I think that it is a nice British magazine. In my opinion, most of the charts were barely above intermediate-level so I didn’t find as many “must stitch” designs in it as I had hoped I would. However, I did get some nice samples of those “cutsie” designs such as Newton, Tatty Teddy, and Country Companions that, at the time, I thought I wanted to stitch. (FYI: To date I have yet to stitch any of those designs!)

In case you didn’t know, today is Download Day for Firefox 3.

As soon as I have time to play with all the new bells and whistles (not tonight, my nose is buried in Romantic Poetry) I will be sure to put together a post entitled “Why Firefox is the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread.”

And if you haven’t upgraded to a REAL browser yet, do it today! What are you waiting for?!