Is it a church or a mission? The advertising says both, so I pulled in to have a look. Once on the grounds, there is not a single sign to indicate which is which. Now derned if that does not look like an old Spanish mission. So I walked around it to take pictures and presently found myself standing beside a priest with a room full of people praying in my general direction. I gave my best howdy-do look and backtracked out the door seen at the lower right of the building shown here.
I've got a completely new set of computer gear, including a netbook computer, but trust MicroSoft to throw a wrench in the gears. MicroSoft Works will not directly save a doc file, something I use as a standard. Also, their crappy trial versions of everything just get in the way of installing the real thing. I'll work around it soon. On March 15, I'll be switching everything to Open Office, once and for all. I've had it with MicroSoft, imagine how I'd feel if I'd every really bought anything from them.I took the scooter for an extra 30 mile trip at 30 mph, and wound up out at Pines Mall, where I dropped in to see my family doctor. Guess what? I am able to put pizza and popcorn back on my diet, in moderation of course. I admit to cheating a little over the years with pizza, but I sure did miss popcorn (which I was allowed once per month).
I've measured out the scooter shop for three computers. Don't tell them it is old models I was about to throw out. They work well on the Internet for surfing and reading, but not much for music and video. I zipped over to Fred's to get RJ-45 ends on my old cables. I knew I kept those for a reason. The scooter shop has a new salesman who has more recent training that I do on certain computer features.
Therein lies a problem, because he can out-talk me on basics. Not because I don't know the basics, but because they have long since been assimilated into what I do and I don't deal with them on a common conversational basis. For example, I've a computer running slow and he wants to know what paging file I'm using. I don't know and don't care, but I know you don't bother with paging files when they have nothing to do with the problem.
He's also inexperienced with real life computer problems. He suggests adding a flash drive and using it as virtual RAM. He does not grasp that hardware solutions are always more expensive and generally too expensive in the long run. I'm trying to solve a problem, not put it off into the future. At any rate, he has an idea of a product to sell on e-readers. I'm considering it not because I like the product, but because the product is cheap, used once a day, and thrown away. (I am bound not to disclose what it is.)
Meanwhile, I'm looking at some e-book generation software. I'm kind of broke until April or May and that is the exact situation I use to move into the unknown. Last time I looked, the only e-book software was expensive, or required a membership fee. I hear that has changed. Trust me, I am not above repacking what you see here, plus almost anything else I've written, and selling it under any title that brings in the cash. All that work I did for FireHow brought me in a piddling $70. (Mind you, early last October that $70 was most welcome.)
I dropped into Jimbos to rig my PA, to wean it off CDs. Turns out with all my costly cables and adapters, I don't have a single compatible connection. I'm trying to get away from the CDs, as they tend to overheat after two hours [causing a laser misread which sounds like a loud "chirp") and CDs waste space unless you fill them up.
My plan is to switch to SD cards as a new standard. (It would eventually take just under 5 years to implement this change. You see, in typical computer-think, the SD cards started coming out in different incompatible types.) I already own cameras, adapters, computers, printers and now an e-reader with the right design. Yet there is still not a single DVD player on the market with a slot, or for that matter, even with a USB port. Why don't all the uneducated consumers hurry up and buy all the crap so something new can take its place. DVD players haven't change in 15 years and it is about time they got junked.
While at the club, I heard some of the staff bragging up this new computer genius they had met. He's 24 and knows "so much about computers you would not believe it". He's such a whiz kid they trust him with their equipment and buy all their gear from the store where he works. Actually, I do believe how much he knows. He is one of my students whom I invited to join my fledgling robotics club last December. Small world.
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