Posts from — March 2014

A drug interaction got by me and it created havoc.

Hopefully things will return to more normal after the drugs are out of the system. Both are good at what they do and cause no problem with the other medications, but taken in close time scale they produce a ‘bad acid trip’. It is very hard to deal with someone who is lucid one moment, and in a different universe the next.

Tomorrow should be better.

The problem with having cable companies and telephone companies as ISPs is that they don’t have any real experience creating web sites, and so they contract the job out. My current ISP must have hired someone who was too terrible to work on healthcare.gov.

First off, they don’t understand the difference between a sales and marketing web site, designed to bring in new business, and a web sites for the people who are already customers.

Trying to establish an account was one of the worst experiences with a web site I have ever had.

First off, there is the assumed knowledge – I was expected to know that they only gave me the part of the account number that changes, and I should automatically insert the 6 digits at the beginning that all accounts have in common, 6 digits that will appear on the written bill, if I ever get a written bill. Then there was the Personal Identification Number that no one told me I had or what it was.

The other annoyance was their password evaluation app. I generated a 14 character password with upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters, and their ‘evaluator’ declared it too weak to use. So then I went back and re-entered the first 8 characters, and the ‘evaluator’ found it acceptable. There is no information as to what they consider acceptable in passwords, all you have is the colored bar graph.

I assume that these guys provide e-mail accounts, but I’m too busy to find out if they exist. I may get one later that I can give to annoying people because I certainly have no intention of looking at anything that goes there.

Who knew the Phone Company had so much pull with the computer gods?

Since switching, the company that provides the e-mail hosting for dumka.com has had a radical increase in its security. It has changed to the point that my favorite e-mail client could no longer connect with the SMTP server to send e-mails. So I’ve had to shift to Thunderbird, which does connect properly.

Then my host for this site had a server fail, and the backup corrupted, which is why you will have seen the maintenance message for the past few hours.

At least downloading the software is much quicker on the new system, than DSL.

A Gentleman at Leisure

Keep the noise down.

[Editor: Ninja out and about on his rope, enjoying some of the rare sunshine. Obviously not taken today.]

Friday Ark

The basics are all working, but little problems keep popping up with the new system. I’ve found a few cables that no longer work after being unplugged from the old router and plugged into the new one, Fortunately I had working spares.

The most serious problem is with e-mail. I can receive e-mail without a glitch, but I am being rejected when I attempt to send an e-mail. I need to contact the new guys and find out if their spam filter may be unhappy with my e-mail host. I have to wait to talk with a person by phone, because they haven’t given me my account name and initial password yet, so I can’t access their on-line system.

These things scarcely affect the joy I felt when I worked my way through the Phone Company’s menu system to cancel the service. All of a sudden they discovered that it was possible to lower my bill, a bill I’ve been paying since I got a phone from them in 1991.

The news seems to be about the fact that the airliner still hasn’t been located, while the death toll increases in the Washington State mudslide.

The Phone Company’s DSL line is finished, over, done. I pulled the plug this evening after a lot of testing of the new connection and equipment. The landline phone is also over. There are no more dial-up ISPs in the area for back-up in the case of emergency, so there was no point in keeping it.

The new cable system is working, and it was actually installed on time. The installer knew what he was doing, and fixed a potential line problem [the signal was too strong] with a solution that will allow a quick fix if the signal strength falls.

Things are noticeably faster for both ethernet connections and WiFi.

The best part will be when I call the Phone Company and tell them good bye.

I’ve hearing about the missing airliner on the radio, but reading things like the BBC article, Malaysia Airlines MH370: Search for missing plane resumes, and related stories, I’m simply amazed that commercial airliners are not tracked as well as the sleds in the Yukon Quest or the Iditarod.

Having a beeper ping once an hour when an aircraft is flying at 400+mph isn’t a lot of help in locating it if something goes wrong. You would think that airlines would want rescuers to reach the scene of an accident as soon as possible, and it really isn’t that much more expensive to add the capability to a jetliner.

Just amazing.

The CBC reports that G7 leaders put G8 on hold ‘until Russia changes course’. Russia says that it doesn’t care that the showcased meeting in Sochi won’t take place, because they didn’t really want to be part of the ‘club’ anyway.

Vlad is letting the testosterone get the upper hand. Leaving the status of the Crimea unsettled was a better outcome than making it part of Russia. Putin has significantly reduced his ability to sway Ukrainian policy by removing all of the pro-Russian voters in the Crimea. This was badly handled by a man who should have known better.

The BBC reports on Dissent among scientists over key climate impacts report.

Actually this is just the summary of the report on the impacts of climate change, and some of the people who worked on the report think the summary is ‘too alarmist’. The purpose of this report was to list the possible problems if nothing is done to ‘fix the problem’. The US Pentagon already lists Climate Change as a major threat to peace and security in the world, so the IPCC report isn’t covering any new ground, it is just concentrating on specific problem that have already occurred, and pointing to other potential problems if nothing is done.

Stuck down here in the middle of nowhere, I’ve come to really appreciate the ability of the Internet to solve problems. I can go out and get information on what people are telling me. I can find products that will never appear in any local retailer. I can notify a network of people of the situation with one message. It really is great.

One of the things it provided today was a menu of a regional restaurant chain, so people knew what they could order before a friend picked up dinner. It is a small thing, but it saves time, which a lot of us are running short of, something you figure out about the same time you admit to yourself that you are a ‘senior citizen’ and need to stop denying it.

It is so much more convenient than getting catalogs and making orders over the phone. Most of the things I’ve been buying have never been in the dozens of catalogs that my Mother receives.

I’ve added a wireless doorbell suitable for a castle or cathedral to tell me I’m needed; a monitor system to hear what is going on and communicate with the patient using DECT 6.0 for privacy; a Bluetooth cell phone headset so I can use the phone without tying up my hands or getting a ticket if I’m driving.

I discovered that there are really nice products for children these days that are adaptable for a sick room. There are spill-proof containers with straws that reduce the number of times the bed has to be changed, including a Thermos model that will keep things cold all day. I’ve had visitors ask for the name of that Thermos model, as they work outside, and would love a cold drink that stayed that way from breakfast to dinner without ice.

I’m also learning the job of a home health care worker, and can tell you they are worth a hell of a lot more than they are usually paid. I’m paying more than their average hourly wage, because I know how hard they are working and I don’t want them to be hired away.

It’s A Trap!

Sigh ….

[Editor: CC laying out like this can end in two ways: you stroke her and she purrs; or you stroke her and pull back a bloody stump. Even she has no idea which will happen – it’s ‘quantum’.]

Friday Ark

I apparently wasn’t busy enough for the gods today, so they decided to blow the packing out of a water shut-off valve to create a fountain behind one of the apartments that my Mother manages.

I was actually able to find a plumber, and he did a very quick job of fixing that, but when the water was turned back on at the main, the valve in the next apartment blew out.

My current ‘dream vacation’ is is an hour of boring nothingness. It is possible … I’ve experienced them before.

It’s that time of year. Spring arrives at 11:57AM CDT this morning. You can have watch it come at Archæoastronomy.

The air is already filled with pollen and the live oaks are dropping last year’s leaves. The azaleas are fading as the camellias have already done, but the Easter cactus is budding. This is occurring earlier every year.

I would note that locally we have had 12 hours or more of daylight since St. Patrick’s Day, and usually do.

If you choose not to lease a modem or router from my new ISP, you have to select them from ‘approved’ lists.

I went with the Motorola SB6121 because it is ‘approved’ for both of the bottom two levels of service, the lowest level that I’m getting, or the next level up. I replaced my tried and true Belkin N300 with a Belkin N750, because I’m actually using my laptop more often now, and it will handle the improved bandwidth that will be available.

Of course, the new ISP is kvetching that I should go ‘top of the line’ available for purchase from them, but the prices are considerably cheaper at Newegg for some reason. My big box is a solid vanilla computer, so why get carried away with the peripherals. If I had something that would be good for on-line gaming, I might do it, so it is better not to tempt myself.

There is a lot of really good super high speed computing power out there. If you want it, talk to Kryten, because he designs them. I do cat pictures, not live streaming. Since I don’t watch TV, I have no idea why the ISP thinks I would be interested in video streaming.

The litter boxes are calling.