Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
What are U doing today?
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What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread)
What an excellent picture of a peacock. yes, you were lucky he posed for you without you asking.
Nina wrote: "What an excellent picture of a peacock. yes, you were lucky he posed for you without you asking."Thanks, Nina. And I was lucky he didn't scare me with his call! LOL
Their voices are screechy and high pitched.
The males will peck at reflective surfaces until they're bleeding - not real bright. Ours used to fight with car fenders of parked cars consistently.
Nina wrote: "Their voices are screechy and high pitched."Nina, the following link takes you to a YouTube where you can hear (and see) that screechy peacock call:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWTABE...
Jim wrote: "The males will peck at reflective surfaces until they're bleeding - not real bright. Ours used to fight with car fenders of parked cars consistently."Well, Jim, it's hard to be beautiful and bright too! :) At least the peacocks are beautiful! :)
Joy H. wrote: "Well, Jim, it's hard to be beautiful and bright too! :)"I am, so I expect nothing less from anything else.
;-)
Yesterday my cell phone rang. It was home calling, so I answered it. I said hello a few times before my wife's sleepy voice answered. She asked me what I wanted."You called me."
"No, I was taking a nap & the phone ringing woke me up."
"I didn't call you, I was typing on the computer when my phone rang."
OK, this was going no where, so we said goodby. I checked my cell phone. Last outgoing call was at 5am when I called Mom. Last incoming one was at 12:31 when Home called me.
I checked the home phone. It showed an incoming call from me at 12:31. Queue Twilight Zone music, right?
Then I got a call from my son. "Anything weird happen today, Dad? Ha, ha, ha."
(There was a reason we spent all that time & money to raise the little bugger, wasn't there?)
Turns out a friend of his has an app for his Droid that makes it look like 2 people call each other & then records what they say. He'd used it between 2 of his bosses at work & they almost wound up in a fight. Funny, huh?
He's getting coal for Xmas - thrown at him.
;-)
Jim wrote: "Joy H. wrote: "Well, Jim, it's hard to be beautiful and bright too! :)"I am, so I expect nothing less from anything else. ;-)"
LOL! Well... you are bright... no question about that... but I wouldn't exactly apply the word "beautiful". "Fascinating" would be a better word. And maybe "dapper". Definitely "good-looking".
Thank goodness for thesaurus.com! :)
http://thesaurus.com/browse/handsome
Jim wrote: "Yesterday my cell phone rang. It was home calling, so I answered it. I said hello a few times before my wife's sleepy voice answered. She asked me what I wanted."You called me."
"No, I was taking ..."
Jim, that's hilarious. What are these "apps" going to come up with next! I'm afraid to think about it. :)
This reminds me of James Herroit's "All Things Bright and Beautiful."
That was a good book, Nina. I loved them all, although it's been a couple/few decades since I last read them.Joy, I'm not sure how funny that prank is. Funny for my kid to play on me, but the incident with the guys at work shows it could have some really bad consequences. I guess most practical jokes can. My cousin had to get stitches in his head once when we pulled the 'water in the bucket over the door' trick on him. It was only a few, though.
;-)
Still, the idea that phones can be spoofed with conversations recorded like that is scary. One friend of mine had to change her number because some company was making objectionable calls to people using her number as the one that showed in their caller ID. She'd had that number for 20 years & her only recourse was to get it changed. That just sucks.
Jim wrote: "... One friend of mine had to change her number because some company was making objectionable calls to people using her number as the one that showed in their caller ID. She'd had that number for 20 years & her only recourse was to get it changed. ..."Can you explain that further, Jim? I don't understand.
A telemarketer or bill collector was calling people's homes. The people would see the number that called was my friend's number & they'd call back upset about the message left or something. They'd get my friend, who had no idea what was going on, but these people KNEW she had called because their caller ID said so. The trouble was, it lied.
Jim, how did the telemarketer/bill collector make the machine show your friend's number as the caller?
Apparently you can do that with the right phone system, just like you can with email. Both systems were created many years ago when security wasn't a big deal & now it's coming back to haunt us. Old, unsecured, important systems that are too ingrained to really overhaul. Kind of like Windows.;-)
Jim, it's a good thing they have tightened up on the security nowadays. Yes, I remember when we could leave our car doors unlocked... and even our front doors! Those days are gone forever!
Hello everyone. I haven't been able to post messages for several days because I've had an allergic reaction to a possible insect bite and my eyes are all swollen. I'm on medication, but it's taking a while for it to do its job.I'll be back when things improve.
Joy H. wrote: "Jim, it's a good thing they have tightened up on the security nowadays. Yes, I remember when we could leave our car doors unlocked... and even our front doors! Those days are gone forever!"Depends on where you live. Few around here bother to lock up & most seem to leave keys in their cars. It probably has something to do with the number of guns that are around here. Strangers need to account for themselves while looking at one. We're too far out to count on cops or locks.
A neighbor parked by my shop one day while we were at work & another neighbor came over with pistol in hand to ask her what she was doing. Not an isolated incident, either. The new neighbors to the south visited their house at midnight shortly after they bought it & got to meet another neighbor with a gun. That probably horrifies some, but I like it. Keeps folks honest.
I filled our 16 oz. hummingbird feeder this morning. When I walked by it a few minutes ago, I noticed it's almost empty, maybe a couple of ounces still in it. Sheesh!
We put out the 32oz hummingbird feeder since the 16 oz isn't even making it a full day now. The 8 oz one on the front porch is lasting several days & we're putting the 16 oz away for a while. The finches aren't eating much thistle right now, so we might swap a thistle feeder for the 16 oz HB feeder. Even with a dozen or more different hooks for feeders, we're out of room.The Purple Martins left on Sunday. They were there in the morning & suddenly weren't. ALL gone, no lingering strays.
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Is anyone else on Google+? Need an invite? I'm going to try it, but I'm not sure if it will work out. I thought Buzz would & it didn't. I pretty much hate FB, though. Too spammy & scammy. I don't know that + won't get that way if folks start really using it.
I took the Purple Martin houses down last night. That's a chore at the best of times & last night wasn't. The tallest, telescoping pole got bent slightly in the winds, I guess. I got the second section partway down & it stuck. Luckily, it's in the corner of the board fence, so I could stand on top of that & lower the other sections enough to get to the house, but then had a heck of a time pulling the pole back up. I couldn't get the slight bend out of it.There were a few sparrow nests in the houses, a couple with babies. The dogs were pleased about that - hors d'oeuvres.
;-)
Well, I'm back but not completely. I'll explain.First of all, thank you, Jim, for keeping this topic going. Your posts are always interesting. The one about the guns is really surprising.
My swollen eyes have gone down (I'm happy to say). It took almost a week on anti-histamine medication to do it. Meanwhile I was visiting my sister for several days and didn't feel comfortable at her computer, even when my eyes were getting better.
Now I'm home, BUT... this morning I tried to turn on my computer and it won't start!!! So I'm using Eddie's computer. I'm not comfortable with this computer either.
So I'm going to take a break, unpack my suitcase and bags and try to re-orient myself to my new circumstances.
I will also try to read the other posts which may have been posted at this group while I was away. Needless to say, I'm really upset about my computer being out of commission. It will have to go to the repair shop for sure. I can't even have my son check it by remote control because I can't even turn it on! Oi!
PS-Jim, I hope your dogs didn't eat the baby sparrows! Oi!
Sorry to hear your eyes were such a problem, Joy. That's terrible. I figured your computer was having issues. I had no idea they were still giving you trouble.The gun thing is just a theory. Could just be that there's so few people around & they're all nice.
Of course they ate the sparrows. Good riddance. They're just feathered mice. Well, these didn't have many feathers, thankfully. The dogs never eat right after eating all those feathers. I'm on a hunt for sparrows now, anyway. They've infested my Bluebird houses.
I made up one trap & will make more once I'm done my spinning wheel. Traps aren't hard to make, just a sliding door with a rubber band that trips when they get into the box & hit a wire. I make them out of coil stock (thin aluminum) scrap, so they don't cost much, but take time I'm short on.
James is coming over tonight - he's in town for a few days - & there are other chores getting in the way, too. We got more rain last night, so the grass & weeds are going wild with all the warm sun. At least our temps are down to 80 or so. Thankfully!
Joy, I must have missed the eye problem when I wasn't receiving emails from goodreads. Was it an allergy or what? I have a friend who is in her eighties who just recently had her eyeballs replaced. I hadn't heard of that before this. I hope whatever is or was wrong is much improved. In recent times when anything is wrong with my eyes I know from experience it is very painful so you have my sympathy and hope your computer is on the mend also.
It is cool this morning!!! 60 degrees!!! It's too pretty to work!!!(Yeah, I know, too many !!! I'm excited. Deal with it.)
;-)
Joy H. wrote: "I will also try to read the other posts which may have been posted at this group while I was away. Needless to say, I'm really upset about my computer being out of commission. It will have to go to the repair shop for sure. I can't even have my son check it by remote control because I can't even turn it on! Oi"After a layoff, when the PC won't start I often suspect the battery on the motherboard first. How old is PC? That said, I can't remember when the battery ever went dead though. When your say "can't turn it on" does that means you get NO lights, nothing appears on screen? That would make me think power supply. Or the 'on' switch. Or the power TO the PC.
"Too many what", Jim?Nina, I had an allergic reaction to something, but we're not sure what it was, probably an insect. Five days of anti-histamine pills brought down the swelling.
As for my computer problem, at this moment I'm using Eddie's laptop. My laptop is at the repair shop. It wouldn't start up. I hope they'll be able to fix it.
I haven't checked my email since the night before last. I guess I should check it via webmail.
Life was so simple before computers!!!
Joy H. wrote: ""Too many what", Jim?..."Exclamation points.
Glad your swelling came down, but it's a shame you don't know what caused it. Makes it hard to avoid in the future.
Earl: About my broken laptop, the lights came on but it wouldn't boot up. When we took it to the repair shop, the technician tried pressing various keys several different ways. Nothing worked. So we left the laptop at the shop for further inspection. Thanks for your suggestions anyway.Jim: I see (about the !!!) Personally, I don't mind a lot of exclamation points, no matter what the composition teachers say!!!
About the swelling around my eyes, yes, I wish I knew exactly what caused it. There were no puncture marks from a bug bite. I had funny "bump" swellings on my forehead which felt sore like black-and-blues but weren't black-and-blue. They are still there but they aren't tender anymore. (Furthermore, I had been using new lubricant eye-drops given to me by my doctor. So I have to follow up on that before I ever use the drops again!)
To all: Below is a link to some amusing dog pics (read the captions) which I took with Jim in mind because he has Jack Russells and has told us a lot about the breed. The dogs in the pics were visiting us in July. It's taken me all this time to find time to upload them to my Picassa albums. It's been a busy summer! Here's the link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/Sea1934/...#
I loved seeing the J.R. but a little sad too. That was the breed of dog my daughter had that died last week from fighting with the two next door neighbor's dog. We all miss Gus; but my son from Austin came with his wife and stepdaughter and that helped break the grief cycle. At least we had some joy to concentrate on.
Nina, it always helps to be distracted from one's grief, even for a little while.
We just had a huge storm yesterday evening. Wind gusts must have been over 80mph. It sucked the water right out of the toilet - there was that much vacuum on the vents. We lost power for a couple of hours, too. Then it came back on for an hour & off again. Did that half the night, so sleeping was awful. I'd just get to sleep & then I'd hear electronic devices cranking back up.We set up the agility equipment outside the barn today. The Bluegrass Terrier Trials are coming up on 17Sep & they've now made classes for other dogs. I might take Lily. In the meantime, I expect to get some good pictures when the goats find the agility equipment. They love to climb on stuff.
It's almost 1pm & still not quite 80 here. Wonderful morning. I got a lot done & it was great. I put a new roof on the goats' house, fixed some of the agility equipment & Speedy's paddock. Then the dogs & I went through the woods & picked up some of the limbs that had blown down. I concentrated on those I needed the chainsaw on & managed to finish up with a bit of gas left in it. It wasn't too bad here, although the area got pounded hard.I found out through Facebook that work was without power since 6pm last night. The main line that feeds the industrial park runs right across Interstate 64 & a pole snapped closing the highway until about noon today. Good thing it wasn't a week day. I imagine it was a mess anyway.
So all my servers & the phone system are down. One of the directors is going in. I'm going to see if I can walk him through restarting the servers, if there is power there yet, so I might have to go into work today. Otherwise tomorrow morning is going to be busy. I kind of hope the power stays out until late tonight. It's too pretty a day to go in to work.
;-)
We have too many hummingbirds:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...
We had a 16oz feeder out for them, but they were emptying it before the day was out half the time. After the big storm last night, we seem to be minus a few, unsurprisingly. Still, this picture shows 8 of them swarming the feeder.
At first I thought there as a hummingbird on my hibiscus blossom but on a closer look, I found a dragonfly and my such a beauty; black and blue. Only a dragonfly could be a beauty colored black and blue.
Hello all. My computer is "toast". That's how my son put it. I've been without my computer since last Tuesday, August 8. That's about a week without my computer. The repair shop said that the video component went bad. It was attached to the mother board and that would mean I'd have to replace the entire mother board. So it's cheaper to get a new computer.So now I have to wait to see what our son says about getting a new computer. He's the one who will transfer all the stuff on my old computer to the new computer. I don't know when he'll be able to do this; it's a time consuming job. The last time he did it we had to go to his house downstate.
Needless to say I'm disgusted. I try to use my husband's computer, but it's a pain in the neck. Yesterday when I tried to pick up my Webmail, I couldn't get through to it. It was a rainy day and I think everyone was inside using their computers here in the boonies. So the connection kept failing. Very discouraging.
Jim, please post pics of the goats on the agility equipment. That will be fun to see.
I can't get over all the hummingbirds you have! We see only one at a time if we see them at all. They like our verbena flowers.
I've been doing a lot of running around and I've been too tired to get on my husband's computer after he gets off. So I'm way behind on keeping up with things online. I'm going to try to be more diligent about it. But I'm getting a lot of reading done. The Lake Shore Limited is turning out to be a good read! Today I received the next Netflix DVD in the Edward VII series. So that's taking up my time too.
Today I went to a Red Hat luncheon at a local restaurant. Great fun! Also discovered a nice rustic walking path by a creek near the restaurant. So that was something new for me.
As my son says, "talk soon".
That's a drag, Joy. I just got a new 3tb drive & have backed up my other 3tb drive to it. Now all my pictures, documents, music & such are on at least 2 different drives that can be taken to any computer. The kids bought me the first drive for Xmas & it was about $250. 8 months later, I got a similar drive for $120 on sale at Staples. Wow!We've gotten a few pics of the goats, but no really good ones yet. I'll post some when we get something funny. Otherwise, it's just 2 fat goats standing on the equipment. Lily is doing very well training on it. She's even going through a bent tunnel now. We still haven't tried weaving, but she's doing the teeter-totter like a champ. I found the best way to get her through the tire is to make her sit in front of it, go around & call her through. Otherwise she just goes around it.
We had to make her wear her collar for a few days. She seemed to think she was a bad dog when we put it on her. Maybe she was worried about going to the vet, I don't know. She rarely wears it, though. We're going to start putting it on for a day or two at odd times. The problem is that she tends to lose them in the woods, so we don't want to leave it on too long.
I can't believe all the hummingbirds we have either. They're swarming again this year. It's kind of a pain keeping up with them.
Jim, sounds like a good computer set-up you have there with all those back-ups.Good luck to Lily with the agility training. We had a visiting Yorkshire Terrier a few days ago. He's smaller than Romeo. They played well together. His name is Caesar (my nephew's dog). Caesar has the cutest ears when they're perked up. I wish I had a picture.
Joy, on your recommendation, we are now watching DVD Edward the Seventh. NOt, a nice father is Prince Albert. Just finished the dying scene. I have heard good reports of The Lake Shore Limited. Will you write a review when you are finished? I can't abide The Queen either. What a cold goose.
Joy, you have my sympathies on your computer woes; hope they're resolved soon! I can relate, because I know attached I am to mine, and how disappointed I am when it has to be in the shop. :-(
Joy H. wrote: "Hello all. My computer is "toast". That's how my son put it. I've been without my computer since last Tuesday, August 8. That's about a week without my computer. The repair shop said that the video..."I was perusing laptops on NewEgg
http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCatego...
and it seems that you can't avoid getting one with Windows7 on it. And that's probably one WITHOUT a complete Windows7 CD, just a 'recovery' type crap version. I bought a Gateway a few years back (I don't use a laptop hardly at all, don't know why I thought I wanted one) with the intention of installing XP on it. I have a couple licensed XPs I can install where I want, but come to find out Gateway wouldn't write the basic drivers for XP for that machine. If you find a way to avoid Windows7 and stick to XP I'd be interested to find out. I THINK it's still possible to do if you build a desktop yourself, but I'm not real sure of it. Let us know what laptop you wind up with, will you?
Hi Earl - Thanks for your comments re computers.The final choice of a new laptop for me was decided on by my husband and our son who works with computers. We're having the new laptop sent to his house so he can set it up for me and also copy my old hard drive onto the new one.
From what I've heard, XP is not being supported anymore. I get the impression that it's no longer practical to have XP.
Currently I'm using my husband's laptop. While I'm fortunate to be able to use it, I miss having my own laptop and am suffering "withdrawal" symptoms. I'm not comfortable on Eddie's laptop. So that's a deterrent to my using it. Also, I hate having to go to Webmail for my email.
Meanwhile, I'm hanging in there as best I can.
Joy H. wrote: "From what I've heard, XP is not being supported anymore. I get the impression that it's no longer practical to have XP."
Good propaganda for Microsoft, Joy. Most sensible people probably avoid buying any software, and get their operating system 'free' with the purchase of their computer. But I can't resist buying apps when they perform a function I WANT. Each new version of Windows OS then refuses to run this software, which infuriates me. Many business people feel the same. They are still furnishing updates for XP at this point, don't know how long that will last, and it hasn't caused me any inconvenience as yet. I guess Microsoft quit selling it, but you can still buy it
http://www.softunique.com/Microsoft-W...
If I have to replace my motherboard I hope to find one that'll run XP. Let us know how you like Windows7.
For now, subject to change, of course, XP will be patched into 2014. Patched means freely available security patches. That doesn't mean drivers that will run new chipsets & such, as you found out Earl. As of last October, Dell quit shipping any PC's with XP. Sure, you could still put it on, but if you did & had a hardware issue, you'd have to put Win7 back on in order to prove it. Not worth it. (FYI, Dell told me in writing that they would pre-install XP through the end of 2010, then were forced to back up to the end of September by Microsoft. So much for a guarantee, even though we were paying $100 extra for the privilege so that Microsoft could charge us for 'software assurance' - normally a premium for protecting against a software upgrade - to allow us to downgrade a version.)
On top of that, XP has some core security issues that just can't be fixed. They fixed a lot of those in Windows 7, but the fix means that old programs can't work the same way in some cases, so they won't run properly or at all. Internet Explorer is one such. I'm sure someone will say, "but you can use the XP Virtual Machine!" You can, maybe, sort of, for some applications, if you're masochistic. The VM takes forever to load, has limited hardware support (only 1 video & sound card type) & gets corrupted occasionally. The fix is to rebuild it from scratch which takes a LONG time since you have to patch it back up from the SP3 issue date. That's right - the copy of XP in the virtual machine isn't a fully patched version, so it takes about a day to patch up.
Small businesses like the one I work for are caught between a rock & hard place with upgrades like this. We need the security, but a lot of our programs have issues with Win7. Our accounting & CADD software has to be updated - $20,000 just for the accounting software, $5000 for one CADD software & another is $4000 per seat & we need 3. Some sound testing utilities just plain won't run, so we have to keep old hardware & software around for it. Worse, many of the payroll & banking applications only run in Internet Explorer v7. Win7 only runs IE v9. We have NO control over any of that.
Then there is the issue of retraining users to a new interface. We've stuck with Office 2003 because of the huge changes to the Office toolbars in later versions. Too many of the folks are just not up to learning a new system without a lot of expensive training & more expensive loss of productivity.
At $400 per seat for Office & about $1000 per computer, you can see that basic software changes hammer small businesses. We have about 100 PC's, so you can do the math & see it's a major expense. The worst thing is they're slow upgrading our accounting software, which does a ton of other stuff like inventory & work orders, so we have it on most of the machines in the office. That means I can't even start buying machines to spread the cost out, which makes it hurt that much worse both financially & training-wise.
Jim wrote: "For now, subject to change, of course, XP will be patched into 2014. Patched means freely available security patches. That doesn't mean drivers that will run new chipsets & such, as you found out..."What an excellent report on the ripoffs of the software business! And quite helpful to me too. Congress should take an interest in controlling this if it so heavily impacts businesses during our ongoing recession. I detest Congress 'controlling' things as they usually make it worse than before, but when push comes to shove, SOMETHING ought to be done. And what a wonderful witness you'd make before Congress. Be prepared to be bought off by Microsoft though - how many millions is your integrity worth do you think?
Earl, I'm not prepared to call it a rip-off, although I feel like it is fairly often. It's still a young technology so a lot of change, especially in the area of security, is expected. I certainly don't want any government intervention, though. There's nothing so bad that their ham-handed control can't make it worse. Besides, look at what happened when Microsoft 'lost' the big browser lawsuit. Not just nothing, but IE is now a more integrated part of the OS than it ever was.
Microsoft gained its market share against the existing giants, SCO Unix & Novell, by 1) paying attention to the desktop & 2) making networking so simple a kid could do it. The way they did the latter was to make everything accessible to everyone. That got them the consumer & all the small businesses who couldn't afford the price & technical expertise that SCO & Novell required. You wouldn't believe how many small businesses first got their computers setup by teenagers. It really didn't matter much back then, anyway. Sharing across multiple systems was laborious & slow via dialup.
The worst thing Microsoft is doing lately, under idiot child Ballmer, is changing the interface in order to look cooler. Seriously, we've been pressing start to go to shut down & using other such 'intuitive' (note the sarcasm) controls for over 15 years. Most of today's workforce has learned this idiocy. By changing it, they're not helping anyone out except the folks that manufacture after-market overlays that make new software have the same controls as the old. Like changing the Qwerty keyboard layout to a Dvorak one, it might make sense, but we're too used to the old way & don't gain enough to make relearning worthwhile.
Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
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I love WordPad pages because all the links are hyperlinked and I can easily get to the webpage I'm looking for by just clicking on the link in my saved file-page.
As you surely know, WordPad pages are much simpler to use than the complicated Word documents. They're just a step up from NotePad pages. That's why I use them both (NotePad and WordPad).