Category Archives: Computers & Software

No photos

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Ok, I thought I had the system beaten. It doe take sending out 2-3 emails rather than one, but it looks like I can possibly get group emails through the “new improvements” of Gmail. But then, things started bouncing today.

What was different? Oh, yes, photos. It looks like no attachments if it is a group email. Or rather, no included code. Ok, I can work around that – and can attempt to attach pictures? Or provide a link in the text which would go directly to the photo on my website. That might just work. But then I will have to figure out how many are allowed and if there are any special limits that gmail has placed without bothering to tell me.

I feel truly sorry for anyone who is trying to use GMAIL for business. No longer able to send out newsletters, for example. I have resisted switching back to yahoo.groups or google.groups because that would give them a permanent list of who I am sending to. That is just none of their business. The same for any of the emailing services. For me to do a group mail, I would have to upload a list of email addresses. Like I would do that?

All of which leave me with the question of a mailing list that has been running for 20 years. Since I am not on Facebook, nothing is there. Twitter? 140 characters. Not words, not paragraphs, characters. Enough said. Most days I actually want complete sentences maybe sprinkled with punctuation.  I am not egotistical enough to think that everyone is going to wander over to my webpage every day just to see if I have come up with something new. That puts the burden on you, rather than having me reach out.

What I will also be watching over the next few days is whether there are some particular systems which are more likely to sputter when an email from me arrives. At least then I could place all those poor souls (pour soles – got to love spellcheck) onto one of the three groups that now exist.

Meanwhile, I survived another run to SF for class this morning, managed to forget my vest in one of the faculty offices, and BARTed to Berkeley where I will spend the next couple of hours immersed in Public Health. Now, I just need to figure out how to access the course materials on line…

Stealing our words

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there are certain words which have definite meanings to us children of the 60s. Those of us who grew up with mainframes, set vocabularies and a sense of humor about the Jaberwok. Not so these modern children who think nothing of co-opting a perfectly well defined term or phrase and standing it on its head.

Tom Standage, in his Writing on the Wall, 2000 Years of Social Media
————->-8 ——–
(did you see what just happened? Rather than just assert something, I went and found a reference that backs up my point in order to give in emphasis and decrease the chance that someone might question it. After all, if someone else said it, it must be true. Meanwhile, I have been totally and completely corrupted. Do NOT under ANY circumstances have anything to do with lawyers, how they think or how they write. You will find yourself totally ruined by the experience. Trust me.)
————->-8 ——–
discusses social opinion, commentary and how opinions change. It is a fun book. But what I am discussing is something slightly different. It is the total and complete stealing of a term of art and changing it beyond recognition.

My disgust and anger today revolve around the degeneration in the use of “HACK.” This is a word that we all know. Whether it is from sports or a glancing familiarity with with axes or hatchets. I understand “hack” and it means to break in, by unauthorized means, through a computer software code or into someone’s computer (mainframe in the era where I started).

Some fool in the 1990s decided to combine two otherwise useful words – HACK and MARATHON into Hackathon. This poor bastard of a word implies a session where a bunch of computer geeks race their bleeding fingers in the pursuit of a software solution against a time clock (and others). Right from the start, there are several problems with this analogy: the first is that a marathon is an INDIVIDUAL (caps intended) race, not a collaboration; the second is that a marathon is a sporting event with specific rules. Back to hacking: the only rules in hacking are that you don’t give away your tricks in cracking into places that your are not supposed to be and you don’t rat out your fellow hacker. Seriously, comparing a group of nerds (present party included) who traditionally fuel on caffeine and Cheetos with seriously physically fit athletes is ludicrous.

So now we have “hackathons” most of which should be much more properly named “brainstorming sessions.” It isn’t computer people any more, the term has become wide spread and used by just about any group that wants a catchy idea for its symposium. All of this leads to what set me off in the first place.

A group of lawyers. Seriously, a group of lawyers – the field isn’t relevant but it was NOT related to tech or software – had a Hackathon in the student lounge at Hastings. They are sitting there in rows listening to various speakers, nodding their heads (those that weren’t taking notes or busy with their smart phones). There is not work-group space in sight.

Brainstorming? Conference? Working group? (well if a group has over a hundred participants). And, I repeat LAWYERS! who normally are extremely precise about their word usage. But there they sit, happily holding a hackathon.

I rest my case.

But I don’t want Bing

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

For whatever reason, one of my browsers has decided to default to BING regardless of which engine is in change when I start the search.

I am neither amused or pleased. The list I have generated pops up, followed by a hijack of the page to the new search engine. It is only Chrome, not Safari which means, more than likely that I will be stuck completely the use of the native Apple browser. Blocking Bing hasn’t worked. Deleting it multiple times doesn’t work and I challenge any but the most game worth of opponents to be able to beat out the millisecond or so where my preferred page with link appears before blinking away.

Perhaps this is another one of those “another improvement for your safety and convenience” improvements? Kind of like the signs along the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the mid-70s where the next sign would say “No Guard Rails for the next 25 miles?”

in other words, we think it will be better, somehow, some way and perhaps some day, but proceed at your own risk.

Email delays

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

As it turns out this evening all my good efforts yesterday were rewarded by gmail. Not. At exactly 1947 I started receiving message after message stating that there were mail delays and that they would continue an attempt to deliver yesterday’s email for another 47 hours.

Oh really?

I can understand one or two emails bouncing. That happens all the time especially since I know a significant number of people who travel and might have a full mailbox. But think about it – it is really, really hard to fill a mailbox anymore. At least for anyone who doesn’t use AOL.

But anyway – everything bounced – to include the cc: to my own non-gmail accounts. Go figure. Any who – it wasn’t the highlight of my day. That was rounding up good friends at SFO Airport and bringing them home for a couple of nights.

We will not talk about the traffic on the way home. Bay Bridge construction during the day? Oh, please – thrill us all by closing a couple of lanes before the last SF exit. At least the traffic early in the morning when I drop off Dani and the dog isn’t anything at all.

And now to see what happens with this email…..

Updates

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

As I found out again, the WordPress App on my iPad just spins forever but doesn’t seem able to upload a post.

Happily humming along, I think I have been updating the blog.

Nope – the post is written and 30 minutes later it is still saying “Uploading” Thank goodness I can take a screenshot and save the post. Most of the words are visible and it isn’t extremely difficult to fill in the blanks covered by the box claiming it was working…. not that it was.

Otherwise it was a quiet day. George had board meetings, I worked on a couple of projects. We took Noah out to dinner at the end of the day before leaving him in New Haven and heading back to the hotel.

Frozen Phone

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Did I mention that my phone had an accident that involved water on Saturday?

I initially thought it was going to be fine. There were a few quirks – like taking a dozen screen shots related to nothing when it wanted to and not taking screen shots when I attempted the same task. But I was hoping that all was recoverable. I thought it would be happy spending all day yesterday and part of today in a bag of rice.

Oh, not so as I sadly found out. Charging the phone was not an option and nothing was working quite right.

So….. after we spent a couple of hours with our architect redesigning the kitchen from your standard apartment ugly to something everyone could live with (and adding a bit of lighting while we were at it) I went to the Apple Store.

The bad news? Phone might make it, but probably not. I could wait and see, but that would leave me in New York this coming weekend potentially without a phone. The Good News? George had purchased the Apple Care plan for my phone. It didn’t cost me all that much to just replace it, get a new screen cover and load the backup. (It is here where I remind you once again that if you are not good about automatic backups, please, please, please set them up so that they happen with frequent regularity on auto-pilot).

And when I arrived home? My new phone cover had been delivered. I am back to the wrist strap in hopes that it will help…..

Not that I needed this or anything –

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Ok – the good news up front – A’s 7: Cleveland 3. Getting back and forth on the BART worked.

the rest? Meh –

 

These are screen shots that my phone chose to take.

That is right – it just fired off on its own. Along with changing channels on the radio, deleting email and otherwise driving me up the wall.

It could be because it got wet yesterday, but that would make it my fault and I would never want to own that expensive little errors. It will spend another night with rice since I elected to go to the game today rather than to the Apple store….

No clue

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

what happened to my original post for today but have a feeling that the WordPress App needs some serious updating. At least my plan was to write in the app and upload it (in a few of my 60 free minutes that I get for my level of Latitudes membership).  Thinking about all the complaints since Royal changed from the 1 or 2 or x hours free to the 1 day/2 day whatever free – I have decided that having a whole day free is much better than attempting to check in for a few minutes a day. In reality, it takes normally about five minutes to get logged in and then if you get dropped carrier, the minutes have been known to continue to run.

In any case, I wound up attempting to use the app. It didn’t work. Of course, my Tylenol isn’t working all that great either. There is a lovely cafe not that far from where the ship docked where Noah and I stopped and checked email. Then we stopped at Walmart. I picked up some more paracetamol, he found sun glasses. We spent almost nothing. This is perhaps the favorite stop on the run for the crew (chance to stock up for cheap and find internet for very little).

I headed back to the ship for my second (or was it third) nap of the day.

Honestly, If I start feeling a little more human and less like chopped liver I’ll try to do a better job of describing the ship, the eats, the crew and the trip.

Down memory lane

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

last night I finally downloaded the 2007-2015 content from proseknitic.de in preparation for cancelling the site.  Should I bother to tell you how many spam comments I had to kill. I found them, of course after I had done the import so I am hoping that most fell outside the import windows.

Then I took a look at comments from way back when and started following links from all the knitters.

Should I not have been surprised to find most of the blogs inactive for years or that I have lost track of a number of people? Part of it makes sense. The blog[s] drifted away from pretty solidly knitting content only to being more about travel with the occasional opinion rant more than fiber. In other cases, I think various people found that Ravelry was easier to use than posting on a blog where few people ever commented. Feedback is important unless your soul is basically that of a writer, in which case you just need to express yourself and the h* with anyone who can’t take a joke.

Thinking back – April 1998-March 2007 – email list. March 2007 (ten years – that is quite scary in some ways) to the present with more or less consistency running both the blog and an email list that varies in size depending on the subject, the year and the drop of those not interested. The last has been balanced by the gain of new friends.

 
My first mailing lists actually went out from my laptop but through a military server. Use of that server lasted till ~2000 when it finally quit tossing outside emails and implemented some security procedures. After that it was min.net for 10 years till the guys got bored and went out of business. Then there was YahooGroups which I think lasted almost until the UK. At some point the restriction on number of addresses was lifted and I went back to emailing straight. Now? Gmail doesn’t have a problem with a serious number of addressees and cross posting from the blog is pretty much cut and paste along with the occasional editing.
 

At the end of my session with the computer I verified that those pictures which were still on the old blog transferred to the new. Those which seem to have disappeared off that site won’t be found till I dig through my photo archives at home. I knew there was a reason that I backed up everything. I’ll finish PDFing the archives and pages just to have them before pulling the plug on the last three sites hosted in Germany.

 

Clock Fractal

I am making progress

15 March 2017

sp#m

Holly Doyne Posted on by

It had to happen. After all, I moved over from the German server to this one based in the US well over a year ago. There was the honeymoon period in which I was tweaking things, moving items and menus here and there before I hit the – oh, whatever and just left things as they were. But I had thought that perhaps I had left the spammers behind.

The last couple of days have proved me wrong. No, I don’t need shoes, computers or SEO software. I don’t care to read all the hashed up discussions which don’t come from real people and often aren’t in a language that I read at all. I just hit the delete key on a number of similar bits of garbage early this afternoon before heading off to watch the Cal Women’s Basketball team never quiet get it together. A couple of times they came within shouting distance, but overall – the Colorado Buffalos deserved their win.

Dinner was pizza from the Cheese Board and a quiet evening spent at home. And it is already Monday tomorrow. We are not expecting rain, but garbage trucks and more utility vehicles probably blocking the drive again.

Caf-fiend

Holly Doyne Posted on by 4

In order to deal with this –

and yet another pile of floppies

It really helps to have caffeine. You can drink it fizzy, you can drink it in tea, coffee… or it can take over your life –

whimsy pieces

which came from Artifact Puzzles which is my other source of lovely wooden puzzles. Those fun little bits fit into this –

which totally works with the table cloth

and becomes the little fiend –

at the end

right about the time that I dropped the last diskette in here –

one full brown paper bag

Of course, now that I have had a volunteer (thank you SO MUCH Steve) who actually is willing to take a few diskettes off my hand (yes, there are other geeks than me out there) and can actually play some of these games which I still have on original diskette. Plus who doesn’t need their very own MS-DOs 3.1?

By the time I was through all of this I managed only a couple of boxes sorted from the garage, drank enough fluids for someone twice my size and rounded out the rest of the day with progress on that fractal –

4 Feb 2017

which with any luck I will be able to finish tomorrow. The purple is within six rows of the bottom which means it isn’t that much further for the greens or yellow.  Of course, there is the slight issue of the Cal Basketball games which are a little higher on my priority list. But I can bring knitting to those….

A: Drive

Holly Doyne Posted on by 14

At first, you could only find them in black. Then one company had the bright idea of making them available in color. After all, with the outside being plastic there was an opportunity beyond the label to be creative. Manufactures included 3M, Precision,Maxwell.  These were the 3 1/2″ little hard floppies that replaced the larger 5 1/4″ softer floppies which in turn were the successor to the 8″ large floppies (see Wang System Dedicated Wordprocessors) .

borrowed from Wiki

 

The drives into which you inserted your removable media were labeled by capital alphabet letters. If you want all the details – Wiki (as usual) has a decent and moderately understandable explanation of the hows and whys. Lets just say that most of us never really got why the “micro diskettes” with their whopping 1.4 MEG (double sided high density) went into the A: drive while the older floppies that had been around for years more went into the drive which was now designated B:  Once computers had a hard drive – it was normally C: It was quite a while later than D: appeared (CD drive) if there wasn’t more than one hard drive. That CD drive never did have a fixed, permanent letter.

In case you hadn’t recognized it, I am primarily discussing the CP/M, DOS, OS/2. WIN etc operating systems and their way of designating drives.

I still have a few hundred of these pesky things around. I have a number of MS-DOS programs in their original 1990’s decade of release. Having those diskettes and the original registration numbers has saved me $$$ on updates on several of the programs. Others? Not so much. But for how long was I planning on hanging on to all of these?

At one time, we had some external A: drives. But they needed either a serial or a parallel port. I forget but it really doesn’t matter since I haven’t had a laptop with either of those for a significant number of years. And then there was the move and I think they didn’t make the boat. So I finally broke down and spent a whomping $14US to purchase a USB A: drive. So far this evening I have made it through over 75 diskettes and found some real treasure. Old documents, War College papers, pictures.

 

Miriam – 2001

 

sock yarn stash 1999

1998

Noah 2001

2003 – Maus selfie…

 

So if anyone is suffering from overload and needs a return to the 80s and 90s – please let me know. I will gladly send you original MS-DOS programs. For that matter, if you happen to need a copy of MS Windows 3.1 , I have that as well…..

And what didn’t get completed.

Holly Doyne Posted on by 5

Mind you, this is not a whine. Nor is it a request for sympathy. But we all have those projects on our list at the beginning of the year which we plan to have completed by the end of the year.

I still have boxes – dozens and dozens of boxes in the garage. Some of them I can deal with (and will) over the next couple of months. Some are just too heavy for me to move by myself. I have items that need new homes but I have no idea where those homes are and I just don’t want to deal with eBay. None of this, of course, has anything to do with the boxes and boxes of books. So organizing the garage, sorting it out and evaluating which (of the kilos of supplies) I have are really going to be used and which need to go anywhere but here.

And then there are the computer files which are partly, but not completely backed up. Or rather, I have items backed up across a number of external hard drives and still way too much information on my laptop. Pictures need to be edited and pruned. More than a couple of dozen past posts are still waiting those photos in order to be released.

Then there are the knitting UFOs that started the year in bags and ended the year in exactly the same place. Most are stranded projects and I do actually want to complete them at some point so frogging them is not a good answer.  I have actually done a decent job on the sewing projects in the last month, but still have to get the studio organized enough that it is functional.

There are the bookshelves in the house that I swore I was going to get organized. Right now, a lot of my puzzles are living on the top shelves. To be honest, the ones that I have completed really don’t need to be there in order to leave room for more books. We always need room for books.

Anyway, you get the idea.

Now, the real question that I have to face – is being home more this coming year secondary to needing health care going to result in me actually getting some of the long standing disorganization under control?

I’ll probably have an answer for you about this time next year.

Meanwhile – this is where I ended the cross stitch yesterday –

31 Dec 2016 – 1/2 complete

with another 11 rows completed. It was about that time that I realized that my numbers weren’t adding up. Turns out that the first sheet had more rows on it than the second which I started today.  Adding in another 9 rows done – means that I have only 2332 stitches to go

1 Jan 2017

I’m not sure that I care for a couple of the color selections, so those may change before I get much further. In any case, I will be glad when I am done with the current “change colors practically every stitch area.’

Oh, the other thing from last year – 431 books read – 10% were audio, the rest primarily eBooks

 

Backing up

Holly Doyne Posted on by 3

can actually be going forward. Or making progress.

Wait – I’m not talking about what happens when you drive a car. I am referring to that process which involves hours of looking over files which have been placed on small portable hard drives “just in case.”

If the issue is one of photos – then it makes sense. For those of us who use cameras not imbedded in phones and travel a lot – the number of photos per month/year easily reaches into the thousands. It makes no sense to hang on to the poor quality photos, the blurred through the bus window and all manner of stupid shots.

But just in case one of them might turn out to be a treasure, a copy on an external drive would free up space on my hard drive. Or that was the theory until I realized that those [now] inexpensive drives have a tendency to multiple in the dark if you don’t watch them carefully. For a long time one has everything organized. Then off on a trip – OH! I don’t have a way of backing up all these photos. I guess I’ll just get another.

My collection of external drives goes back to the late 1990s. I have a couple of jump drives from that era as well. It would be nice to be down to few devices with an actual chance of me being able to find something. I’m hoping it is a possibility rather than a fantasy.

The audiobooks are easy – I can file them by author. The photos I file by year with subfolders for months and under that dates. The problem is when backups have been done at different times I don’t always have the same photos on the drive.

And so it goes: with embroidery files, knitting patterns, eBooks (those only date starting with FictionWise in 2002).

Otherwise it was another rainy day filled with errands, Candy Crush and audiobooks when I found myself behind the wheel of the car for the fourth time in less than three hours.

Its Hiding

Holly Doyne Posted on by 6

Last Wednesday I took my laptop along when we made a run up to the Sacramento VA so I know I had it then. For that matter I dropped a note to this list on Thanksgiving; again meaning I had the laptop. Now full possession of my brain is another matter.

Friday I wrote I post in my head and the same for Sat. Yesterday I thought it was about time to put fingers to keyboard. Besides, there are all the fleece pullovers I have been cranking out to show you. Tally here is now @ 2 x 4 people (Noah, Dani, Alex & myself) + one for Maus and 2 for Shana. Then there are the additional three to go in the mail tomorrow along with a batch of sock yarn.

Meanwhile I am wrangling appointments, searching for the stupid laptop, making soup and contemplating finishing the last small bit remaining on the Fractal cross-stitch in progress since ? This year certainly.

R1- D3 – Katakolon

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Which is the lovely little town in Greece that serves as the port and gateway to Olympia. I was here last year. It was where I had a chance to talk to a number of the shop keepers about Greece. Shop owners who were not at all reticent to explain that they were working, the government not so much. And certainly they had to pay taxes. And who did I think paid for all the improvements in the street, the sidewalks, the store fronts so as to make it attractive? Certainly not the government….

This is also the town with two small interesting, if not strange, small museums. The first alleges to be an historical museum of Greek Inventions. Doesn’t matter what it is, it was invented here first in Greece. Most likely decades to centuries before the rest of the world. It is small, fun and entertaining. Probably worth a few Euros the first time through, not a second. The other museum features musical instruments with much the same theme. If it is worth having, it was invented here….

I went for a stroll, I relaxed. Trying to balance out my frustration with the ship’s internet. That rogue wave that took out 12 windows in the Viking Crown lounge (Deck 11), soaked the carpet and trashed untold thousands of dollars of dishes and glassware apparently also did a number on the satellite antenna that handles comms. Internet stays up for a few minutes at a time, if it comes up. Frustrating to say the least.

Research not getting done. Email not being read or written, books not getting borrowed from various public libraries. Color me not a really happy bunny for the moment.

Its a lovely day out there

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

and as much as I need to be outside, there is just too much to accomplish.  On the agenda today besides backing up files and photos I have decided to tackle the pile of hard drives which have accumulated over the years. Some date from Heidelberg before I moved to the UK (2008) and most of the rest since. The storage size on most makes me question whether or not some shouldn’t just be tossed. And that doesn’t include those now refusing to be read.

So, I am figuring that I still need a few; duplicates of the important files; audio books; TV Series, photos; files from forever ago. But I don’t want to admit how many hours it is going to take to consolidate 9 larger drives for which I can mostly find power cords and the hordes of smaller drives that seem to have done the rabbit while tucked safely away in a shipping container.

So I start in. And start going slowly insane. I have a lot of duplicates, several drives which have seen better days and some missing connecting cables.  But I will  persist, or gone insane – one of the two.

Meanwhile – I finished “The Coroner’s Lunch” in audio by Colin Cotterill. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and am off to read in the second in the series (borrowed in eBook from the public library. The Vietnam era is clear in my mind, but not always the connections with Laos and Cambodia so reading something set in a non-western, non-English world is fascinating. Keeping the year – 1975 in the forefront of my mind is a more than occasional challenge but helps me think back to when I was an intern.  Other than a few of us, Vietnam was an issue. Laos? Who had heard of Laos?  It wasn’t a location that entered the public consciousness till well after 1975 when the.evemts protrayed took place.

and then there are puzzles. But more about them another day.

It will be Sept

Holly Doyne Posted on by

Did I mention that George and I are looking to relocate sometime in the not so distant future (next year? Year after?)? I realized as part of the move a requirement to shift from my German web host which I have been using since 2006/7. Using the same system and software for that entire length of time; including Smart-FTP which works so well that I have forgotten how to set it up.

Seriously. My FTP software is running on an old netbook. Old enough that it runs Win98. No hassles, no problems, not supported for a long time. I had a major brain cramp in getting it all organized in the first place. Ran over my limits a couple of times and had to regroup. The help guys are great – or at least they were at last pass in 2007. Under the adage of “if it ain’t broke – don’t screw with it” I have left the system alone.

Webpages are easy. I can cut, paste and reload pix without a problem. But eight years of blog posts just aren’t going to happen without some help. Then I had the brilliant idea of using a WordPress plug in to automate the process. OK – that part sort of seemed to work – except that you first scan and build the backup. My sites + build is higher than my allowable server space.

It is 1900 in the evening. I am packed. And tired. And leaving early tomorrow for the train station. I’ll be home for a couple of days end of Sept. I will deal with it then.

Books

20 Books to Rohrbach this morning and 121 to the Heidelberg Altstadt Shelf.
Basic numbers here 1261 + 123 yesterday = 1384 + 20 + 121 = 1525. I have 40 more children’s books to be dropped tomorrow at the USO.

insanity or what?

Holly Doyne Posted on by

It isn’t that there aren’t other things to do…. laundry (four loads), cleaning and that every so fun and necessary scrubbing out of the fridge. But I decided to go ahead and start setting up my blog et all on a US based server.

Fun?

Not. I started out with menus which have since disappeared. This is, I think, going to be more than balanced by the fact that I don’t have to maintain WordPress myself. And at less money per month than I am know paying.  Oh. Did I mention about 10x the amount of storage as well??

we shall see – that is when I am back from dealing with yet another load of laundry.