Boys and their toys

No, unfortunately I didn't realize my dream of owning a vintage Austin Healey or Alfa Romeo.  In my next life maybe, but it doesn't look too promising for this one.  What I did buy, though, was a new camera.

It's still just a point-and-shoot variety, but this one has a 30X optical zoom, 'cause, you know, sometimes a guy just has to zoom in on something 30 times.  :)

For a few years now I've used a simple pocket camera that has served me admirably:

To photograph cars at a car show or similar it's been great, and I'll still use it some, but recently I've wanted a photo of something that was just a bit out of range and I was dead in the water with this one.

I learned long ago that anything with much more than an on/off button is too complex for me.  Consumer Reports and lots of user reviews said this one was easy peasy.  Sold!  And so far the camera has been.  It's setting it up to connect (via Wifi) with my computer, iPad, iPhone, etc that has been a pain. 

The instructions just assume everyone starts out with at least an Associates Degree in Computer Technology.  They really shouldn't let a techie write the how-to instructions for a consumer electronic device....they can't think simple enough.  I finally had to call in my in-house IT guru (K) and she set me up.  Sort of.

Take a picture...press x button...wait for it...it connects to my computer...do this...do that...drag it here...on and on.  Finally, about 8 steps later I was able to produce a picture I could share on my blog.  Jeez, this is gonna take all day to download all my car pics.  

*OMG, what have I done?  Can I take it back?  Where's the box?*

But then, on my iMac, I did something (unknown) and suddenly a pop-up asked, "Do you want to download your pictures directly to iPhoto?"  

ABSO-FRICKIN'-LUTELY I DO!  (Apple to the rescue! :)

Bada Bing....now it works like a champ.  God does indeed look after idiots, drunks, and now the tech challenged, too.  :)

Have a great weekend everyone.  Stay warm.

S

What's the point?

This is pretty cool:  In the paper today was a story about a guy in Montana that makes iPad, iMac, and iPhone accessories out of wood.  It seems pine beetles had killed 10,000 trees on his family's property and he was trying to figure out what to do with the dead trees.   He came up with "Bad Beetle".

Before it rots into mush the wood is salvaged and "re-purposed" into these attractive cases and stands.

If I was into fancy cases and such I'd probably get one myself.  But here's what I don't get:  Apple, Samsung and all the rest spend billions of dollars to miniaturize their devices, right?  It's a HUGE deal when they can make a case .02 of an inch thinner.  It gives them massive bragging rights and they can charge a few bucks more....image is everything.

Then we buy these gadgets and before we leave the store buy fashion cases the size of a small paperback book.  Or worse....

I guess that's supposed to be a bar of chocolate?

Is this really an iPhone case?  For mom or the kid?

What's the point in making them a silly millimeter smaller if we're gonna wrap 'em in huge cases?  My iPhone case is just a thin sticky type of rubber, and that's only because I'm too butterfingered to hold on to the slick glass and chrome case it comes with straight out of the box.  And I'm cheap.

S

Is it just me?

I have got to be the un-luckiest person in the world.  This morning I was perusing the news and there was the tech guy from the NYT raving about Dashlane.  It's an app that can remember all your passwords (and we all know what trouble I have with that) and is pinky swear absolutely secure.  You can see it here, after the obligatory commercial, of course.

Whoa....thank you God!  It was as if the techie had said, "Listen up Scott Park....this is for YOU!"  I called for K to come see.  We both went back to our computers, her PC and my iMac, and downloaded it.  It will automatically sync everything between ALL your devices once set up.  *happy dance*

On K's PC the app came up and said, "Welcome.  We see that you have all these accounts and we have noted everything and upgraded you to 99.999% secure passwords.  You no longer have to sign in for anything, we'll do it for you automatically for as long as you shall live.  Enjoy."

On my iMac it said, "Click here to download.  Thank you."  Then......nothing.

HELLO.  Now what?  *silence*

I called K back over and asked her to take over for me as she is an excellent techie.  Nada.

Now her PC, iPhone and iPad are all synced up, while I'm still sittin' here beatin' 2 rocks together trying to make fire.  Grog sad.  

This has got to be the absolutely most user UN-friendly app EVER!  If it works on an iPhone and an iPad, why not on my  iMac?  I think there's some guy back at Techie Central who sees my name pop up and says, "Hey guys, come here.  It's him again.  You wanna screw with him some more?" *giggle*

Bastards.

S

What a difference trashing 1,400 downloads makes

Wanna have your laugh for the day?

My computer, an iMac Warp Speed VI, had slowed to a crawl.  On rare occasion K used my computer and complained about how something was waaaay wrong with it, this from a woman who has a Hewlett Packard, which of course runs Windows.  (Can you tell I'm not a HP or Windows fan?)

Yesterday I was looking at all the little symbols on the screen of my Warp Speed VI (by then more like a Molasses Drip II) and saw there was one marked "downloads", which I assumed was just an inverted "upload".  (Hey, to my little Neanderthal brain that makes perfect sense!)  I've opened email attachments from friends and contracts and such from work, but never thought about where they went after I read them.

I clicked on that icon and lo and behold there were "downloads" on there from years ago!  Over 1,400 of them to be exact.  I figured if I hadn't looked at them in years I probably wouldn't look at them again in the future, so I whacked 'em all.  Pffffft!  Gone.  And now my 'puter is back to running at Warp Speed again.

^already more tech savvy than me

Who knew?  *Besides every other adult and most kids over the age of 2 in the civilized world.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I see the Defense Department will soon remove the restriction that prohibits women in combat.  The social media is abuzz with the question, "Is this a good idea?"

My answer is a resounding YES!  I say this because years ago as a married man with a wife, three daughters and a female dog in the house, I knew without doubt on certain days of the month they could have gone toe-to-toe with the Warsaw Pact and put some serious whup-ass on them.  

Ronald Reagan didn't bring Communism down.  It was the threat of having to face my female warriors that made them unfurl the white flag.  ;)

S

Damned if I do, damned if I don't

My eyesight sucks.  I've worn glasses since I was a little kid, and later in life tried contact lens, but found them to be more trouble than they were worth.  They were just very uncomfortable, and besides, by then I was totally used to glasses.  And oddly enough, as I'm nearsighted, I sometimes take my glasses off to read if the print is too small.

Then about 8 or 9 years ago (I never did have a good sense of time) I had a series of detached retinas in my left eye....they kept lasering it back on, it kept coming back off.  They finally got that fixed, but the result is I have zero peripheral vision on my left side.

My right eye has gotten substantially stronger to compensate. (Thank you God!)  You learn how to get by.  For example, I put one of those tiny convex (?) mirrors on my driver's side rearview mirror to help me with my blind spot when I drive....so far so good.

A couple months ago I had a spot on the side of my nose (where my eyeglasses rest) removed as it was diagnosed as skin cancer.  The cancer is all gone, but in the process they mucked up the tear duct in my good eye.  GRRR!  What was it Roseanne Roseanna Dana said on SNL?..."It's always something".

Now here's the other side of my conundrum:  I hate carrying stuff around.  Unlike what the late actor Karl Mauldin said in his TV commercial, if it won't fit in my pockets, I DO leave home without it.  "Travel light, freeze at night."  I finally broke down and started carrying sunglasses, which for me was a major concession.

E-readers have been a mixed blessing.  I loved my Kindle, but it was limited.  I wanted to be able to check email and the internet while on the move.  iPhone to the rescue.  Sort of.  It met my requirement of being small and "carryable", but dang that print was tiny!  I mean, you can only stretch/enlarge something so much.

Next, the iPad.  UGH!  Waaaaay too big to tote around.  How about a tablet?  Better....  I bought a Samsung Whizbang III (this was before the iPad mini), and it's worked pretty well.  Still a hassle to carry, but all things considered it could be worse.  Yesterday it was a beautiful day and K and I settled in to a nice table outside Starbucks to drink coffee and read, but the sun's glare off my tablet made reading virtually impossible.  UGH again!

What I need is a screen the size of my gigantic iMac screen that folds in half, then half again, then half again, then half again, and fits in my shirt pocket.  Can any of you really smart geeky-type people help me out here? Invent me one, oh, and dip it in that non-glare stuff, too, while you're at it.  And please hurry....I'm not getting any younger.

S

We are such suckers!

I see the US Government has reached an agreement with Afghanistan that calls for us to continue financially supporting them for 10 years after we cease combat operations there, which means through 2024.  Or as Afghan President Hamid Karzai sees it, his personal 401(k) will be funded through 2024.  Lavishly funded.  Highway robbery funded.


So Microsoft buys a bunch of patents from AOL (aka Dead Man Walking) for a cool Billion Bucks, then turns around and sells the majority of those to Facebook for $550M.  Is it just me or does this deal smell?  I don't have a Facebook account, never have, never will.  Something about this Zuckerberg guy bothers me.  From what I've read a lot of people are becoming dissatisfied with his Facebook, too.  I'm thinking his innocent looking kid-next-door face belies evil genius intentions.  Wonder where this is going?


Speaking of Microsoft....It seems hackers have infected a network of more than a half million computers worldwide by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system to install malware on the victim computers.  You can go here to see if your computer is affected.  I don't know diddlysquat about computers, but this has just made me realize once again how much I LOVE my iMac. Apple rocks!


Four days until the weekend.  Hang on.  :)


S

The saga of my old desk

I've always liked roll top desks, so back in the late-'80's I splurged and bought a nice one, along with a matching 3-drawer oak file cabinet.  I had cubby holes and drawers and little compartments for everything.  I was a happy camper.  By the mid 90's, however, when PC's became popular, roll top desk's drawbacks became apparent.  I had a succession of laptops as they were the only ones I could use on my prized desk.  Problem is, I don't like laptops. My fingers and their keyboards don't get along.


Over the years I had to move it twice.  OMG, what a nightmare!  My philosophy of buying the best possible furniture and then taking good care of it forever was and still is good advice, but "the best" usually means solid and heavy.  That came back to bite me big time!  About three years ago I/we bought an iMac, and it was love. *sappy music*  The roll top had to go.  Sort of.  I took off the roll top part and had my cabinetmaker fashion a new flat top, and we were back in business.

Then I had my "downsizing" epiphany and my desk's days were numbered....again.  Few people wanted a desk that large, and those that did wanted a roll top.  Go figure!  (The old roll top part was long-gone, somebody's garage sale trophy.)  Finally, at the 11th hour before....actually during....our recent move, a guy answered my Craig's List ad.  On Saturday morning he came out to see it, we haggled a bit, and money changed hands.  Whew!  Now it was his problem.


I loaned him and the young guy he brought with him two furniture dollies to get it out to the parking garage.  I walked with them so I could retrieve my dollies, but instead of stopping at a pickup truck, they stopped beside a ragged-out old Lincoln Town Car.  What the....?  


If I hadn't seen it with my own four eyes I wouldn't have believed it;  the two of them picked it up and put it on top of that car, then secured it with a couple of ratcheting straps.  K met him in passing while we were moving and sized him up as being "not right".  What an understatement!  I later checked the news expecting to hear of a massive traffic jam on the highway caused by a desk that fell off the top of a car. 


I guess he got it home in one piece.  I can only imagine the home he took my prized desk back to.   Of course I'm glad it's gone, but at the same time I kinda miss it.


S