Tag Archives: computers

Hardware/Software, Personal

Do any serious writing?

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Scrivener for Windows

I’ve been waiting ages for Scrivener to come out with a viable Windows product. I’m happy to say that my wait is now over. I’m plugging away on their latest version, 1.0.3, and it’s working flawlessly. It doesn’t yet have all of the features of the other computer company at version 2, but it’s coming along nicely.

I’ve plugged three projects into it, and plan on using it from now on. I find the software extremely useful for story planners such as myself. If you’re a pantser, perhaps not so much.

A trial version is available for 30 days of actual use. Like the ad copy says, if you use the trial for two days a week, it lasts 15 weeks. Try it and buy it, right away. I did. Once you get past the learning curve, you’ll not go back to Word. The price can’t be beat either.
Scrivener for Windows

Hardware/Software, Popular

Weather Center Gadget

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Weather Center Gadget

Update March 14, 2014: How to add Windows 7 gadgets to Windows 8.1

Update November 18, 2013: Fix for Gadget display issues after IE11 Installation on Windows 7.

Update for Windows 8.1, October 18, 2013: Following the install of the Windows 8.1 update, I had to completely uninstall and then re-install 8GadgetPack‘s v8.0 to get the sidebars to show. No big deal, because they now work just as well. Remember, though, that these gadgets are for the Windows 8.1 Desktop. They are NOT for the Windows 8 Start Screen.

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Update January 11, 2013: Looking for gadgets for Windows 8? Look no further. 8GadgetPack has a 3-page collection that can be loaded onto the Windows 8 Desktop. I’m using some of them, and they work perfectly, especially the exact same weather gadget that’s on this page.Yes, that’s right. This weather gadget can be loaded onto the Windows 8 Desktop.

No, they’re not for the Windows 8 Start screen. They’re for the Windows 8 Desktop. If you spend the majority of your time on the Win 8 Desktop, as I do, then these gadgets are for you, too.

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I like having a weather gadget on my desktop. When the simpleton Windows 7 weather gadget stopped showing me the little sunshine icon in the top left for the city in which I live, I was annoyed. I experimented with every city in the world and discovered that mine was the only one without the little sun shining brightly down upon me, even when the sun was actually shining brightly down upon me.

Obviously I searched for the solution to the problem. If you’re having the same problem, don’t bother searching. The morons that write about these things in blogs (for example, this one) and forums don’t have the foggiest notion why the OEM Windows 7 weather gadget has stopped shining down upon us all. Furthermore, they all have absolutely no idea how to get it working again!

But don’t despair, dear reader. I have the solution. It’s called Weather Center gadget. You can obtain the latest version here.

Don’t look on the official Windows Gadget page. It’s not there.

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To change the number of days that show up:

  • click on the gadget and then use the scroll wheel to choose the number of days that are displayed.

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Note that this gadget is NOT a solution to the “Cannot connect to service” that sometimes appears on the Win7 weather gadget.

Hardware/Software

I’m finally in the 21st Century

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Motorola V262
I have replaced this antique

(Phone-wise, at least.)

I avoided it for as long as I could, but it was eating batteries, and at 50 buck$ a pop, I just got fed up. It was good to me though, and traveled around North America well. The perfect traveling companion–no space in the luggage racks was required; no change of underwear necessary; no makeup needed. There was never any complaining.

I have moved on to someone something newer. Call me fickle if you wish, but admit it–you’re jealous.

HTC Desire HD
with an HTC Desire HD

 

 

 

 

Hardware/Software

Free* long distance

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*It’s not actually free, since you pay an annual fee.

I finally broke down and bought one of these. I’ll use it primarily as a backup with my laptop when I’m traveling. It’s running on 64-bit Win7. So far, it works adequately. I had to do a bit of experimenting with USB ports to get it to ring a phone for incoming calls on the laptop.

  • Outgoing calls are not a problem. Plug it in and start making calls after a software install included on the dongle.
  • On the laptop, I had to try a number of USB ports before I found one that would ring the telephone on incoming calls. I’m not really concerned with that, since I won’t be using it for incoming calls.
  • The phone you plug in should have a REN (Ringer Equivalence Number) of 0.0 or the phone probably won’t ring. The REN is located on the bottom of the phone. If you’re buying a new phone, the REN should be listed on the box. If it isn’t, it means that the REN is high. Notwithstanding that, my Motorolla MD481 with a REN of 0.0 does not ring on incoming calls.
  • Voicemail and call forwarding are provided.
  • Be aware that it is a basic phone service, not an extravagant system like Vonage – which I use – or your local phone system.
  • 911 service is typical for a Voip phone system in that it’s NOT CONNECTED to local police, fire or any other type of local emergency service.
  • There are a limited number of Canadian area codes available should you choose to request a local phone number. For example, in Alberta, there are only two available area codes-one for Calgary and one for Edmonton.
  • When your computer goes to sleep, or is off, the phone isn’t available.
  • I don’t recommend it without a primary phone service in the house – whatever primary phone service you choose to use.

Again, let me be clear: Under no circumstance would I attempt to use it as my primary phone service.

Blog tribulations, Hardware/Software, Stupidity plain and simple

Midphase / ANhosting loses a customer

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Update October 4, 2010: I canceled a two-year account and received no refund, even though there was over a year and a half remaining on my account. Thanks for nothing, Midphase / ANhosting.

Folks, leave this outfit in the dust and ignore their fancy recruiting website.

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Some time ago I switched hosts. Now that I’ve experienced interminable load times with no sign of of a fix for a week while using Midphase / ANhosting, I’m back with lunarpages.

How not to impress a customer looking for support

A litany of excuses:

  • Our slow load times are because of this specific WP plugin.

Okay, so I’ll just disable all of my plugins on all of my sites and shoot that theory to hell. You betcha.

  • The reason our CPanel is so slow to load/freezes today is because we’re doing server maintenance. We’ve switched so many of our customers to your server that other users are hogging all of the bandwidth.

Right. But what about the past seven days with the same problems? Uh-huh.

  • Google is taking up too much bandwidth by indexing all of the sites on your server during the day, so we’re limiting access to everyone until the early morning hours.

I didn’t even get up early in the morning to check that one out. Give me a break.

Bye bye Midphase. So long ANhosting. I don’t think I’m gonna cry.*

*With apologies to the Everly Brothers.

Blog tribulations

I’ve been plagued with a pox of spam bots

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I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about these dumbasses. Aren’t they aware that there are plugins available to block them? They don’t care about that though.

Before installing a plugin I was getting 80 to a hundred attempted comment spam posts – which ended up in my approval que. Now they can’t get through at all, thanks to Bad Behavior and an access key from Project Honey Pot.

I’m left wondering why or how they all of a sudden chose my site to bombard with their endless stream of stupidity. I must have pissed someone off when I used samspade.org to blow the cover of a couple of spammers and report them to their hosts.

On a more constructive note, I’ve now changed the god-awful sidebar and footer colors to something new. It will be easier on the eyes, I trust. In know it’s easier on my eyes.

Blog tribulations, Hardware/Software

All done and running

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Earlier today I finished updating my fourth site, and they’re all good to go now. I’m surprised at how little effort it actually took. In the event of problems I had backups, but basically all it amounted to was chasing down a few misguided urls in a database file and re-doing a single page on another blog.

I have never liked switching DNS servers. Since I can’t actually remember the last time I did switch – it was probably seven or eight years ago – I was concerned, but WordPress made it all pretty pain-free.

Of course, I had pages saved from two sites that outlined the procedures they used, so I wasn’t completely in the dark. I followed them to the letter for the most part, and here we all are.

Perhaps I’ll work on the colors tomorrow.