apart from better structural quality that is LOL. Hate when some on reports that a port or a piece has fallen in.
But apart from that  I think 

1. They should make a Gypsy a little bit like design studio giving the user the option of linking cartridges or not. If we do not link then they should allow us to plug the cartridge in the cricut and cut and if we link then no cartridge needed. That way we need not be fearful that we can't sell the cartridge and be reluctant to use the gypsy. This is I think a gain gain situation for PC too.
2.  It sure needs hide contour feature.
3. A way to switch off open template as it gets to be a real chaos after page 5
4. And of course a fix for the multipage dump in CDS etc and a proper file conversion.
5. Reliable updates. I have enough adventures in my life and do not want to live dangerously through my Gypsy - ha ha
6. Faster welding as it is slow as a snail. Can't say tortoise as that tortoise went and won the race :) but this one... just a snail - ahh  well .. a snail too has a hard nice protective shell doesn't it? and our G breaks easily so what can it be.......(thinking here) what is a snail without shell called... got it !!..SLUG.  

Well. One of the softwares I got called Artiseer was sleeping for about 6 months in my computer and I thought why not give it a try. It took a little while before I got the blog to my liking somewhat. Then the Blinkie looked so out of place so had to design another Blinkie - which hopefully suits the blog. So here I go again.
This time I will not guarantee that I won't change the background LOL. Its so easy and quick to change that my blog will change colors hopefully only when the season's change :)

It is still difficult to grab hold of small images as I had shown in score marks and also lately Mya showed in Tuesday Treats project. We have to tap out of the whole area into free zone of mat and tap back in. But it gets easier also if we change the cursor size (as I have already shown in the video) too - to a smaller size which makes it easier to grab. So if we have problem selecting one small shape among which might be overlapping with another - then just change the cursor height (when you tap free area of mat & you see that the width is 0 and you have only height - then that is height of the cursor)  and then try grabbing the image
BTW I was so happy for Mya when she discovered hiding the circle by welding another shape. This was a question asked earlier on when a MB member wanted to hide the eyes and nose of a monster to make a monster card as that did not have blackout feature . Since visual is always easier - I have an early video on this - it is one of my early welding videos. It is always so exciting isn't it when we stumble on to something. Never loose that excitement and be willing to experiment. Even when I has already found what Mya was talking about , her excitement was sure catching and I felt like jumping with her for her discovery.

I had won this during New Year while participating in a fun party at Treasure book Creations. I was own with back pain then and returned early from a  party my family and friends were having so decided to cruise in the MB - which was my favorite hobby back then LOL and when Nurseviper - a MB friend asked me to hop in I did and think of the surprise when I actually won something.  Thank goodness I was lying down and already in a prone position for I certainly do not own a helmet  in this country.
This is an image of the purse/clutch (web image)


I will cherish the purse as my first ever prize and looks like my only ever prize. I will keep it new and look at it  often .
I prefer the target pencil box to slip my G in and put it in my regular purse. I use even the HSN bag to store my cables but do not carry it as if I carry too many bags I most probably will forget and loose it .
Thanks Sage from Treasure book Creations for the lovely prize - a memento of a fun party.

We know that the zoom button (top left silver curved button) can zoom a mat by holding the button and tapping on the area of the mat you want zoomed. (Recap: Hold the zoom button and tap on the spot in the mat you want zoomed. If you want more just keep holding the zoom button and tap some more. I think 3 times brings you to maximum. This maximum zoom is to the exact scale which you can use your ruler to measure - which is helpful while designing. Then to unzoom just hold the zoom button and release without tapping)
But some of the other functions (some works with only the newer updates) are

1. Scrolling through the lists. Note here: In 0155 you had to hold on to the button and make your selection while still holding on for if you let go the list went back - or atleast  my G behaved this way ;) - for with the G who knows. But this has been fixed in the later updates and again my G behaves this way now.LOL 
2. Zooming an image on the keypad overlay to full screen so you can see the image better (by pressing zoom and tapping on the image). But just now I found out that this feature also works in the keyword search that way. If you tap on the lower white box where the cartridge window is - you get the image and the cartridge it is from. Just press the zoom button and tap on the image (not the cartridge) and it will bring the full screen image so you can see better and then make a choice. To go back to the regular screen just tap on the screen or just press the zoom button and it will take you back to the previous screen. This works even on photo app to see your photos.

Oops - 3rd post in a day. Would have been the 4th post but decided to schedule that one for tomorrow. Hmm - Should do that way all the time as it seems very organized LOL but you know me - I am impulsive and mainly old and forgetful so I better write when I can remember. :)
I got this award



from a fellow Mb member - Cindy Mcvey from - http://crazy4crafting.blogspot.com/ whom I call a box queen. Yep I name almost everyone.  My favorite one so far is MB member OohSnapp whom I call Helmet girl. Cindy I call box queen as this girl keeps whipping out a box from her hat in a wink of the eye. Thanks Cindy for the award.
But :( it comes with two conditions. Me likey , likey the award but the conditions - hmmm. I think I am going go make an award button of my own and pass it on without conditions LOL.
Anyway let me try to tackle the 2nd one first and you will know why I did this in a short while and will thank me(else you would have tanked me lol)
I have to choose 15 bloggers to award them to.
Hmmm. tough choice narrowing it down. Regretfully few of the important people I want to name do not have blogs. But will try. First few are easy

1. Robyn -  My Pink Stamper and her blog http://www.mypinkstamper.com/. Well do I need to say anything more. This girl is single handedly responsible for the sale of millions of cricut in the world , for who hasn't watched her tutorials and gotten the courage to try out and buy the product? She is definately responsble for mine. I stumbled on her blog when I was searching for something to do with stamping for my watercolor LOL. I saw the videos and - here I am now a scrapbooker . 
2. Cheating on this as I can add some more to the list. even though these 3 have individual blogs they have one common one ;) - Calender girls - http://www.cricutchristmas.blogspot.com/.Since a few weeks back The calender Tammy has moved out of the group as she is too many commitments . Tammy has her  own blog  - http://www.cricutcritters.com/. HappyHappyJoyJoy - has her own blog too - http://www.obsessedwithscrapbooking.com/ . and so does Melanie - http://courtney-lane.blogspot.com/
3. I am blessed indeed that this girl agreed to associate with me in our sister blog Tuesday Treats. I will use Message board names - Myamagoo. If you have a Gypsy - hers will be the name on your lips and her blog http://cricutinspiration.blogspot.com/. . Hey - starting to feel like I am presenting either the Grammy or the Oscar. The nominee for the best performance goes to. Ok - I have to dress the part so a brief break here...
4. Can you see me in this gorgeous silk saree - a marroon color with golden border and decked with jewels. No? :( Well I tried. ... continuing I am so happy to have found this  friend. I grab my 2nd cup of  coffee after sending the kids off to school and settle down and check my mails and chat in them with her. What layouts she makes. She has taken upon herself to make a scrapbooker out of me along with my other ( local) friend Michelle. Presenting - Sassylady and her blog http://shesasassylady.blogspot.com/
5. This is a new special friend I made. She is a quiet one in the MB but so kind. A while back I was down and hurting reading some awful mails She cheered me on and sent me beautiful mails and boosted my spirits. Acts of kindness when it comes in such moments in your life mean all the more. So here is that special lady with such a kind heart who thought of me - MB name - Scrappin*Gadget*Girl and her blog -http://tjsscrappindreams.blogspot.com/
6. This star featured her creations recently in  TuesdayTreats. Her thanksgiving creations still is fresh in my memories. And her valentine silhouette image - Oh la la - CherB and her blog - http://www.cherylswindow.blogspot.com/
7. This one is a enabler - She made me buy the sweetheart cartridge after seeing her creations in the MB. One talented gal . She is such a sweetie that it remains a mystery to me why she chose the 2nd part of her MB name???? - presenting  NurseViper and her blog http://scrappyrn-scrappyrn.blogspot.com/ 
8. A very sweet person and so talented. She has made lots of helpful Gypsy videos . One of the G veterans - Scrapbookinggrandma and her blog http://www.scrapbookinggrandmacrafts.com/
9. She is a helper in the MB and any tech questions you have with your Gypsy -  you can go to her.Lately she has fallen int love with flowers and you will learn how to make a variety of them at her bog :) - makeupgirl217 and her blog - http://217creations.blogspot.com
10. I saw her work at the holiday with christmas blog where she was Miss February and I so loved her creations that I almost ordered one of the cartridge My community after seeing one of her projects - only to realize that I already have that cartridge LOL. Enfys and her blog - http://going-buggy.blogspot.com 
11. This one is a Energizer Bunny of the Gypsy world. Creates and runs. She has lots of basic G videos - Rozetteakafluffy and her blog - http://seefluffyscrap.blogspot.com/ 
12. What a sweetie and a talented girl . She is one of the designers in the gypsy challenge spot - dancinggarden and blog http://scrap-n-dance.blogspot.com/ 
13. One of the Gypsy veterans . Just go to her blog and be awed with her creations - pkaysunshine and her blog - http://p-kaysunshine.blogspot.com  
14. This is one humorous girl and so talented and generous lady. I call her the helmet girl as she has the unfortunate habit of falling off the chair when something surprises her. She has resorted to wearing a helmet nowadays. - oohsnap and her blog - http://ohhhsnapper.blogspot.com/
15. I met a new friend at the swarm and was really impressed with her work. She paints very beautiful faces on scalloped circles and paper dolls - craftjunkie and her blog - http://craftjunkietoo.blogspot.com/

You can delete an image from the mat alright by pressing the "X" but one of the questions  asked in the MB recently was 
"When I am planning a cut with a lot of layers, I put them all in the queue so that they are all the right corresponding size, when I go to the mat, there are too many images to fit on the mat, some of them seem to disappear off the side, never to be seen again. How do I solve this? "

So how do I delete the unseen images. Should I play hunt across the mat.
Here is one solution to deleting the images
They go off the mat mainly because they all were selected in the same line in the keypad overlay and some overflow but note that because they are in the same line in the overlay white top box - they are also automatically grouped. So go to the mat and see what images have gone out and note the last image completely on the mat. As long as all of them is blue in the mat (if not just tap on the image area and they will become blue - make sure that none turn purple though for then you will be working on just that one image instead of a group) - see which all go out . Now instead of hunting them down here go to keypad overlay and you will see all the images on the white box in a line obviously. Just backspace that image/images and they will be deleted. You can also go to a particular image on the same line and backspace i.e the image need not be in the end of the line - you can even go to the middle and hit backspace. Then when you go to the mat you will see the images have been deleted. 


So to answer the question on the top or rather how I would do it is
First set the cursor size ie height of what I want the main image to be say 5 inch paper doll means set the height of cursr to 5 and then select the paper doll and maybe just 2 or 3 accessories. Then goto the mat an check. if the 3rd one is out - then come back to the keypad overlay (making sure before that the images on the mat are blue - ie selected and in a group) and delete just that image which has gone out from the mat by backspacing it. Then go to the mat and tap where you want the next set to g ie the next line and comeback to the overlay and select some more. That way I need not change the mat size  or play cat and mouse a lot.

I thought  would post the article which I wrote for "Obsessed with Scrapbooking" blog - Calender Girl - HappyHapy Joy Joy's - So this is just cut and paste

"

Hello everyone,
  My name is Pam and some of you may know me from the Gypsy Message Boards by my MB name thebugbytes. I do have a blog by the same name - http://www.thebugbytes.com/.
When Joy invited me to write a little something about the Gypsy and include the link to my articles in my blog I was ….. Thrilled… Well that seems such a mild word to describe what I felt. Those who know me – do know how I regard these calender girls –they are Superstars in my book. Thanks Joy for this “20 mins of fame”.
So here I go…grab a coffee and some munchies – to keep you awake and hmmm – just in case wear a seatbelt so that you do not hurt yourself if you do nod off.
I got my Gypsy during the launch. Well… suffice it to say – I was not thrilled then. I also without knowing better at that time linked my cartridges which made it returning it back not an option. It did not come with a manual at that time and the electronic version in the G was useless too. It did not have all the features it was supposed to have and had tons of bugs (what a pun). You can just imagine the frustration all we initial buyers would have felt. It was then when one of my friends asked me should I buy the Gypsy that I wrote  my first article – pros and cons of gypsy – you can find the original link here -
http://www.thebugbytes.com/2009/10/pros-and-cons-of-cricut-gypsy-for-new.html
Down the line I did update it and you can find that link here
http://www.thebugbytes.com/2009/12/pros-and-cons-of-gypsy-after-build-0158.html
I used to spend a lot of time at the MB. Initially we learnt from each other.  I started keeping my blog as a log of the G J (gypsy Journey). So if you are interested in the progression you can read my early posts. It may in a jiffy help you to while away your time in case you have forgotten to check your books out from your library ;). Or maybe it can answer some of your questions on Gypsy as these are topics touches on some of the questions commonly asked in the MB. A little while later when the topic came up to compare Gypsy vs Cricut Design Studio I wrote another article in my blog and the MB. Here’s that link -  http://www.thebugbytes.com/2010/02/gypsy-vs-design-studio.html
Instead of rewriting all these again here I thought it would be better if I just answered in a nutshell a Question –Why should I buy a Gypsy? Note the word used here is I. So please do make your own informed decision after sufficient research. Never hurry and impulsively buy (Gosh I wish my hubby doesn’t read this as he knows I am impulsive. But in my defense I do some research before buying )
Biggest advantage in having a Gypsy is of course Mac users (providing they have the right compatible OS) have the power too of welding and designing their creations rather than sticking to the basic cartridge images.
Since I am a windows user to me, the main advantage in having a Gypsy is portability. So easy to slide it in your purse and design anywhere. You will not believe the places I have taken this and designed… if you can call what I put on the virtual mat as that LOL.
Whereas in design studio – you have to be tied to your computer and even if you have a laptop you cannot carry it as easily wherever you go. This feature alone has made a huge difference in the way I design (again that word). I have started using my cricut more now. Second thing is no more lugging cartridges (provided they are linked). Just take the Gypsy – for when cutting with the Gypsy you do not need the cartridge in the cricut (Note: The cartridge should be linked and secondly the cricut becomes a slave and it’s controls will not work – so no auto fill feature , fit to page etc)  . You might have to make arrangements for referring the creative features (like which button is the shadow feature etc) as right now it is not in the Gypsy keypad overlay.
To me the biggest plus in Gypsy– hands down this wins in my book – is the group feature. This allows us as the name suggest to group things together – like making a set and then do a single action on it – like I can group everything and in one go ,if I press cut and paste everything will be pasted together. CDS users will definitely see the benefit in this one as even though CDS pastes it in exactly the same spot you have to select each and every single image and then paste it in. Of course one more big thing in favor of the Gypsy are the 2 wonderful cartridges – Gypsy font and Gypsy wanderings which will I don’t think will ever come out in cartridge form.
You can share and use gypsy files (not cut files as they have to be converted with paid version of CDS) and many generous people do share their wonderful files which saves you time of recreating. Thank goodness this feature was added in later updates.
But the downside to the Gypsy is that you have to link the cartridges to be able to cut from it and once linked the cartridge cannot be linked to another Gypsy (no it will not get erased when linking – you still can use it as a standalone) and legally cannot be sold unless you sell it with the Gypsy itself. If you do not want to link there is a workaround for windows users (who also have paid CDS) and many do use it this way, in that you can design with the G and then convert the gypsy file to cut file (cds file) and cut with the Cricut Design Studio (Note: you have to plug the cartridge in and there is some bugs while converting like multipage dump and slanting and skewing reset which needs to be fixed a little before cutting).  Also the Gypsy does not have the hide and contour feature still. Again windows users (having CDS) can follow the same procedure as above for getting use of that too. Unfair advantage for windows users isn’t it?
So if I do not want to lug my computer and cartridges, I don’t mind linking cartridges and want to have ease of design, don’t want to use hide and contour feature much and want the two wonderful cartridges then I would choose Gypsy over CDS. If you are a Mac user then the point is moot and of course ;) best of both worlds – have both. Cost wise if you find a good deal then you can get the Gypsy for lots lesser nowadays and when you add the price of the two cartridges to it then that factor (again in my view only) should not enter in (Not counting the rewards as it keeps varying). So these are the salient points. Many other points I could think of are covered in my original article.
Before I take your leave - I know some of you will have a burning question in your mind to ask me curiosity and all that – So I’ll answer (really, really hope that hubby does not read this) – yes I do have the G, the CDS , SCAL and now Make a Cut. I do need one of the last 2 (not both but could have stuck to one – I know) to cut many of the images I need of my culture.
So that’s it folks. Do take a look in my blog for details and even there I might have forgotten some points and plain don’t know some more – so I try to add/edit when some stuff pops up in my brain and would welcome suggestions from you for the latter – so do drop in to my blog to say Hi. If you are still awake here’s a huge Thanks and  a virtual Hug from me for sticking on.
…… Sincerely Pam


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