My prices just went up. It took me 7 hours to install the operating system and some basic software on three computers. Very little wasted time, and I’m not quite done yet. The sad news is that Linux has some unresolved issues and does not do most things very intuitively. It also lacks drivers for some common devices, and I point out that them naming that driver some strange word so I can’t find it has the same effect. Nor do they seem to have a dictionary site where one can go find what these things are called.
The gas fitting does require a flare. JP says he’ll drive out on Saturday and fix the thing, which I will believe when I see. He’s been out here twice in two years and the first time he got lost and drove home without finding me. Here is the exciting picture of the flared pipe end-piece. I know, the action in this series is truly something to marvel. Anyway, you can see the flare in the copper. The flaring tool costs $23.What? Oh, that lump slash nugget thing in the photo? It is a chunk of iron pyrite I use for a paperweight. “Fool’s Gold”. If it is iron, how come it isn't magnetic? Anyone remember Tracy, that football player from the beach? He showed up today. They don’t have to say, I can always tell when they’ve wasted time trying to learn computers the cheap way. Through a non-teacher, whiz kid or free lessons at the library. Now he’s decided to be serious, so we are scheduled for Thursday. You can’t mistake this dude, he is “six foot twelve”.
I found a Home Depot that is only three miles from here, the Oakland Plaza is just over five miles. Upon finding the Hav-a-hart traps cost $25 each for the smaller models I decided to set ordinary rat traps. Cruel, but the lady (a healthy female) won’t leave even after the food supply was completely removed. Okay, almost completely. She even got into the cockroach bait and ate that. JZ is aware I have the flu and gave me a supreme lecture for biking over there. I didn’t listen, I mean, my throat is sore, not my legs. Besides, I wasted too many Decembers in my young life living where it was too damn cold to ride a bike 8 months of the year.
Here is another thrilling picture. This is my orange juice production facility. You didn’t know I operated an orange juice factory? Annual sales between zero and one dollar, no employees. As you see, the equipment is in use by our most experienced lead hand. Note the modern computer equipment in the background, which has nothing to do with the orange juice. But allows me to, in Florida style, advertise that my premises are computer-equipped. A customer came in today with a recording that would not play. I like a challenge. He bought one of those cameras (similar to my DXG but four times the price) and recorded a lecture. It is in some weird format called CIMG. That is about it, most of the day I was surrounded by computers. Make that my computers. How many do I own anyway? Let’s see, including the laptop, eight. After a momentary pause for some smart aleck to make an uncalled for comment, I point out that five of those are on my Internet café network.
Of note, a year after good usage, the huge hard drives on the network are just not being used. Proof that the majority of Internet users probably don’t even know how to go about filling up memory. I’ve decided to replace the 160s with 40s as they come in and upgrade this computer, as it is 80% full. Mostly my videos.
I also got a chance to evaluate the new AVG 7.5 and it does a super job. Even catches those MS keyloggers that get installed along with what you thought you were doing. It finds things on previously clean systems. Let me run it on this computer and see what I come up with. Stand by.
There is also a frighteningly expensive [I heard $400] new version of Adobe Acrobat, which most people use to read pdf (portable document format) and that’s it. Rumor is that the program (which some retard decided to call an “application”) can produce a booklet without having to set a slew of parameters. If you want to see how not to publish a book, use MS Publisher. I've heard disturbing rumors that Adobe is beginning to install spyware.
Well, practice time. I’m arranging a stage version of “Don’t Be Cruel”, adding some twenty-note walks down the fret-board. Even Cheap Trick only used one [eight-note] walk. Ha, you should hear this riff I invented to take the place of that slightly off-key rhythm guitar part in “Folsom Prison Blues”. If we all live long enough, I may one day figure out how to embed sounds here.
On the topic of music, a keyboard player came in today. Mark Bornfield. He’s been playing for thirty years and had some interesting perspectives on performing, a few of which I did not understand. I don’t usually consider playing with a keyboardist but this guy has worked the cruise lines. He has a gig up in Deerfield Beach weekdays so it might be worth a trip up there.
I still draw the line at over-synthesized music which seems to be a problem with all keyboard players. By that I mean, when they walk off the stage, the thing keeps playing. He’s mentioned he “buys the tracks”, not a good sign. He also said that no bass player could play correctly to sequenced tracks, which seems odd to me. I can play to anything and do so regularly. Yes, I have also considered that in such a duo, the bassist is decidedly second fiddle. With a guitar player, I can hold my own.
ADDENDUM
AVG is very RAM intensive, visibly slowing the computer down. The creators are aware, since they’ve included a settable option in case you have to work while it is running, so I’ll see you another day.
Later, yes, AVG did pick up keyloggers. These are nasty little programs that are not normally detected as viruses. They record your keystrokes and send them back to some party who wants “to serve you better”. And more often, too.
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