The Fun Never Stops
As yesterday was the third day in the entire month of July that didn’t feature a thunderstorm, and today’s storm didn’t show up until late afternoon, the Lawn Guy [no, he isn’t from ‘Lawn Guy Land’] harvested the ‘hay’. Afterwards he stopped by to tell me that the outside outlet on the the 4X4 in front of my Mother’s house fell over from ‘dry rot’. Well, the post was weakened by being in the ground, but I have a feeling the fact that there is paint scar the same color as the lawn tractor might have something to do with its current condition. I will add it to the list.
The marigolds in the front of my house are ‘pining for the fjords’. It was some sort of fungus that wiped them out, but the roses are thriving.
Linux still hates me. I downloaded some of the software I use in Windows and installed it. Apparently the installation was still going on in the background when I had to switch to Win 7 and restarted the machine. It locked up tighter than a drum. It would have been nice if there had been a warning about the background processes and a chance to abort, but that didn’t happen.
I have configured Thunderbird for e-mail, but it definitely doesn’t work the way I do. It is going to take a lot of screwing around to make it do most of what Pegasus does for me in Windows.
The cats are being a real PITA with Sox trying to break into the bathroom to see what Ringo is getting to eat, and Ringo trying to break out to eat kibble. Meanwhile Excise freaks out if I raise my voice, convinced that I’m yelling at him. As a result I spend a lot time evicting Sox, returning Ringo, and calming Excise. Property just snickers from the top of the refrigerator.
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My understanding is that Mozilla, at least, is discontinuing further development of Thunderbird, though they may yield it to a suitable group to continue it. I agree with you: Thunderbird doesn’t work the way I do, even though all the essentials are there somewhere. I finally gave up on it. Then again, my email host (everyone.net, whom I recommend highly for reliability) has a good enough webmail interface, even for IMAP fanatics like me, that I don’t really miss having a “real” email client on my end.
My problem is that I don’t want to leave the e-mail on the ‘Net. I can access all of the accounts on the ‘Net, but it means logging in multiple times and doing a lot of manual stuff, that my current software does automatically. In addition there might be an encryption problem if a certain client gets active again and decides to use my services. He insists on encryption. [Note, I don’t think the information is worth the effort, but he’s the client and was willing to pay for it.]
They stopped development on version 3.x according to the software, but I downloaded what they called version 14.0. Who knows what’s going on?
Well, Linux is a work in progress.
And Linux will *always* be a work in progress, because the geeks who write Linux don’t know anything about actual consumers who use computers because, well, they’re geeks. That said, I’m surprised by how well Gnome 3 works. They put some real thought into making the new user interface useful without needing to grab your mouse for every little thing. Too bad the applications that run under the new user interface are still stuck in 1995…
Well, other than the e-mail, the other stuff seems to work the same as it works in Win 7, but then I don’t have need for any cutting edge, multimedia stuff, which is where, I understand, Linux really lags Mac and Windows.
They did, at least, update the kernel recently, so there is hope on the horizon.
Property just snickers from the top of the refrigerator.
don’t you just hate when they do that? 😉
speaking of fun, my a/c ran out of freon thursday night, the repair person could not get here until friday evening and did not have enough freon, the only freon supplier within miles and miles and miles that’s open on saturday burned down sometime in the wee hours between friday night and saturday morning, and all the cats are lying around looking like the clocks in a salvador dali painting. good thing i am a cheapskate and normally keep the thermostat at ~85 anyway. it’s also a good thing that we’re not in the middle of a real heat wave, or i’d have had to go out and spend the catfood money on a window unit.
i hate to think what revenge they’re dreaming up for when the temperature returns to normal, but meanwhile, other than the sound of multiple fans running on high, it’s sure been nice and quiet around here.
She raises hell in the early morning hours and needs her rest so she can have her fits.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t like the central units, but prefer the distributed solution of the window units. The 8000 btu Energy Star unit in my living room can cool the entire house for cheap, and if something happens to it the 6000 btu unit in the computer room can keep the place livable. I don’t remember the last time the 6000 actually came on, as the 8000 handles the load. It also saved me major utility money over the old 10000 btu unit that it replaced.
Of course the bathroom is out of the loop because Ringo doesn’t like air conditioning. It’s a real thrill using it.
i gave up. i went and blew the catfood money on a 6500 btu window unit a few hours ago. if it’s just that the central a/c needs more freon, that’s fixable. if there’s something else wrong, i could be without a/c for days. the landlord called 4 or 5 repair persons and tomorrow sometime is still the soonest possible time anyone will promise to show up.
i was going to get a 5000 btu unit, but everybody and their cousin was out buying window a/c’s and the smaller sizes were selling/sold out. i got the last 6500 and that was the second store i went to.
If possible put in a window on the North side of the house, or at a window that is shaded. It makes a lot of difference. If it has an energy-saver setting, they work well on the new units, as does putting the fan speed on auto. They really are a lot more efficient than the old units.
It is definitely a bummer when you have to buy one in a hurry, but the weather doesn’t look like there is going to be break in this high humidity cycle any time soon.
i put it in the room that stays the coolest in the afternoon. partly because that seemed the smart thing to do and partly because that was the easiest window to get to.
When the temperature is hotter than hell and the cats are melting, there’s a lot to be said for convenience. In the computer room it has to go into the window on the South side, because that’s the only one with an available outlet. Fortunately, it isn’t on much because the condenser has a very hard time shedding heat on that side.
electrical outlet availability figured into the decision too, although i do have a stout heavy-duty extension cord, complete with gfci, handy. i got it to use with the shop vac for vacuuming up pet fur, but i was willing to sacrifice that task if necessary. 😀
Using extension cords with AC units or refrigerators tends to shorten the life of the compressors. The only one I have ever used for either is a 10 gauge I have to use with the generator. It requires a special socket, but I have 30 amp lines for the AC units.
I think the news are rated for 15 amp circuits, as an example of how much more efficient they are.
I hope it does the trick, and the main unit gets fixed quickly.