Wednesday, September 12, 2012

let's build a smarter....


Good old reliable technology.. 
 
you know when it comes to computers I am sort of a luddite.  I don’t care if I have to hop up and down on my left leg, tug my right ear twice, then pat my (considerable) stomach three times, AND every (repeat, every) time I do that, the computer does what I want it to do, I am fine with that.  Just be consistent for God’s sake.  If this, then that. All the time. So anyway, this morning after doing my daily scan of Facebook whizzing past all the kitties and doggies, photos of somebody “tagged” at a party looking half in the bag, the vitriolic political ads from left and right, to find the few meaningful things (say from restaurant pages), I decided to shut the laptop down.  Down in the little window to pick what you want to do was that little yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it.  Click.  Immediately get the typical “Windows is installing update 1 of 23,454,872, do not shut down… etc.”  screen. Okay fine.  So I walk away.  After a while I notice that it had indeed shut down.

Meantime I went up to the loft to do some stuff on the desktop, where I had to go through the same drill.  Eventually it comes to life, and I click on IE9 to look at some sports stuff, and I get the little blue revolving circle and “website cannot be found”.  Google?  You kidding me?  I then notice the little four bar icon in the system tray has another yellow triangle on it.  Hover over it and it tells me no internet connection is available!  BS! I am sitting right here looking at my modem and router and they’re both blinking happily.  Crap.  Re-boot. Crap.  One more time!  Crap!  So I finally get in touch with my IT “go to” person who calms me down when I think the world is ending.  What followed was a harrowing (for me) session of “unplug the modem”  yikes!  "Now unplug the router".  Sweat pouring off my forehead.  "Plug back in the modem and wait for all four lights to go steady green”.  An eternity later they do, except for the one on the right which should be blinking..  Okay plug in the router.  I do, the now modem seems happy with blinking light five, and the router begins to flash meaningless icons.  Try it now!  “website cannot be found”.  Crap.  Hmm…. Unplug, plug, no change.  Let’s try shutting down the computer first.  We did, then plug in, plug  in, and bingo I am cruising on the WWW!.   What the heck?  Fifth time is the charm!  Magic..  might as well hop on my left leg.

Okay, and while I’m at it, here’s another one:

Lately when I fire up said laptop I get a little window popping up informing me there is an update to Java available and do I want to install it.  First time, I said, what the hell, sure..  well half way into the process, it looked like I was not only downloading the Java stuff, I was getting Google Chrome for free!!  I don’t want it!!! Stop!  Now it's a daily routine..

 I tell you..  Computers: you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them..I think somebody said something like that about something..
 
To market, to market...

Lastly, I hate to just relate what you can read for yourself in the newspapers, but not everybody reads them.   Alert readers (of the newspaper) might know that McKay’s old food store on Hollywood Leonardtown road was trying to get a license to have a little wine bistro in the store.  Back and forth with the liquor board, but finally after discovering one of the board members has exactly the same thing, they relented.  Now if you go by there, there are more trades vans than you can shake a wine glass at (Electric, HVAC, Plumbers, Framers, Dry Wallers, etc.).  Anyway, that’s not the news, the news is that McKay's will be pulling out of the store they have in Wildewood, near DB McMillans (an independently owned restaurant).  Some entanglement about leases.  Those McKays seem to have trouble with their places..  Woodburns, and now this.  Speaking of which, somebody said that the renovated place on Hollywood Leonardtown will be more like the original Woodburns.  Only an observation, but a different demographic on this side than Solomons was.

Next post will reveal the flutters plans for going to Ireland (and more).

TIP!

And speaking of posts (said the clever blogger) I found out something interesting yesterday.  When I create the brilliantly crafted blog and hit the “publish” button, it immediately appears on the internet.  BUT, apparently if you get it delivered by email, it may take overnight.  Somebody said today that “hey that lecture you said was tonight was last night!”  their email popped in a day late.  Right under the title of the piece it tells you when it was posted.  So beware if you use it for scheduling..
 
But you can always schedule being
DFD
 

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