Doggone internet connection
We kept losing our internet connection, leading to the really annoying need to disconnect the router, reconnect it and wait for the lights to flash their way back to allowing us internet access so that we could resume whatever task had been interrupted. It was happening up to eight times a day. Our dog sitter guessed the problem might be that the phone was too close to the router and interfering with the signal, which had been the case at his parents’ place. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the phone and router the recommended 10 feet away from each other in the dinky alcove that serves as our office, but as we used to do with quarrelsome kids, we got them far enough apart that things appear to have settled down. I’ve had to reboot only once in the past three days. Smart guy. And the dogs like him, too.
Trying to think win-win
There will be a post coming about scanners, drivers, Canon tech support, WinZip and WinZip tech support. If you think there’s a story behind this, you probably have read Patty Goes Geeky before. I’ve already got hours into trying to solve the problem, including half an hour or so with an incredibly patient Canon techie who, bless his heart, I think let the tiniest bit of frustration creep into his voice as he said the problem must be with my computer and he couldn’t fix it. I am now waiting to hear back from WinZip, so I will know how the story ends. Sigh.
But in the meantime, I encountered another simple thing I used to not know how to do, but now I do. The WinZip person asked me to send a screen capture of the error messages I was getting. I didn’t know how to do that, but I know enough to know that it must be very simple and it was something I already should have learned to do. I did a search and found the Vista directions before I noticed she’d thoughtfully included a link to instructions in the e-mail.
Here’s my version: Click the Start button, type “snip” in the search box, double-click the return for “snipping tool” and use it to draw a box around the area you want to capture. Save it and use it.
Let us now hope that the solution to my Canon/WinZip issue can be handled as deftly. I’m not counting on it.
Wrong number
Well, that didn’t work very well, did it? I came across a SanDisk Mobile Card Reader/Writer, unopened, in the box of my husband’s abandoned BlackBerry phone. It’s for transferring photos from cell phone to computer, and I NEED THAT! I scissored open the package and started reading the directions. Alas, to use it I needed the card out of my hand-me-down phone, which I couldn’t find. But wait, there was also a cable in that box that fit both my phone and the USB port on my laptop, so maybe I could bypass the thumb-drive-looking gizmo and connect directly. But wait, I had to download new software. But wait, my computer didn’t recognize the attached device. But wait, maybe both devices needed to be restarted.
Nope. After researching what kind of phone I inherited (a V323i), I discovered Motorola’s directions and online troubleshooter didn’t accomplish my task. I Googled a site that answered a similar question with, “You idiot, there’s no card in that phone so the only thing you can do is e-mail the photos to yourself,” and the comment thread was closed because of the inappropriate response. But both the other questioner and I agreed that maybe the flamer was right.
Contact sport
Because my theme (as opposed to “resolution”) for 2012 is “experiment,” I reckon I may be posting more diligently to Patty Goes Geeky in the new year. Or not. Maybe experimentation will lead me in non-tech directions, instead.
In any case, there’s still an item left for 2011. As new secretary (somebody forgot her resolution to cycle off boards) of the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association, I needed to create a board mailing list for my Gmail account. After confirming preferred contact info for those who’d been emailed under multiple addresses (and tracking down through Facebook the last name for a new member I knew only by first name “Barnaby” — how many beekeeping Barnabys can there be in Seattle?), I had what I hope is a clean list to send to other board members.
Using my low-tech skills, I planned just to copy and paste my contact list. Nope, Gmail decreed. After consulting Help, I learned I had to create and export in CSV format. (CSV is comma separated values, a factoid of no relevance to getting this task done.) The instructions were useful only to a point (I was not saving to a disk), and then I had to muddle the rest.
I saw that Excel was an option, so created a spreadsheet and labeled the fields. Turns out I didn’t have to label the fields to export into; labeling was automatic. All I had to do was delete my first attempt (I exported all my contacts instead of the group I needed) and then hide the unneeded columns in my second attempt. After a couple tries at saving (the instructions about losing information depending on save-format were only moderately useful), my experiment was a success! I had an Excel spreadsheet I could email to my fellow bee-loving boardies.
Why “experiment” for my 2012 theme? The unformed desire to be at my age at-least-non-stuck-if-not-crazy-risky crystallized during this vacation time spent with my chef son. Will, whose Christmas list included both singing and welding lessons, coached me through home projects (e.g., a substitute for Diet Coke syrup being one) saying, “we’ll try it and then we can tinker with it.” His desire to learn and his fearlessness (singing lessons? when all of his genes would wail “lost cause”?) were inspiring to me.
Both my children are brave, smart, funny and passionate about their beliefs. They are my teachers.
Carmen to Don Jose: It’s over. I’ve unfriended you on FB.
I’m going to become a regular reader of TechFlash now that my talented friend and former Seattle Times coworker Michele Matassa Flores has become Assistant Managing Editor for Digital Media at the Puget Sound Business Journal. Her first post, “Why does TechFlash care about the Seattle Opera,” ponders the way technology is interwoven with Seattle life.
She writes: “The Seattle Opera blogs ‘If Carmen and her friends were on Facebook,’ featuring a mock Facebook page filled with clever, fictional posts by characters in the show playing through Saturday (Oct. 29) at McCaw Hall.”
Having seen “Carmen” this week at Seattle Opera, I have to say I was dubious about a possible connection between technology and Bizet’s fateful story of love scorned. But then I thought about how raw people’s emotions get when they’re unfriended on Facebook, and realized that today Bizet could just as plausibly had Don Jose stab Carmen over discovering that she’d taken their relationship off her profile.
(As much as I enjoyed this production of “Carmen,” one of my indelible memories of opera is a previous Seattle Opera production that curtained-down with a white-dressed Carmen leaving a crimson blood streak on a stark white wall as she died. Breathtaking.)
Excellent resource/wonderful time sucker
Alex Johnson has “cleaned up and updated” his Journalists’ Quick Reference Page. I think you’ll find it useful, and also find it difficult to resist entering something into one of those boxes he’s collected in this one-stop research resource, just to see. On this particular day in history, for instance, I learn that in 1915 a Mr. Chubb purchased Stonehenge for the equivalent of $11,500 as a present for his wife. Bookmarking this baby, for sure.
Free was a good price
I opted for the pay version of AVG internet security when I got the re-up notice, even though one of my I.T. guys (the Portland one) said I’d probably be fine with the free version. The difference, he thought, was the free version checked for bugs after the fact, while the pay version verified sites before the fact. But, he said, if I’d feel better with the higher level of protection, go for it. So I did, for around $40/year. (Using the same rationale, I bought the fifty-buck Backblaze to back up up my computer rather than continue the manual monthly back-up. It seemed to be the best choice for me based on a DigitalEve Seattle discussion and I had too much content at risk to continue to trust a home-done effort.)
One of my scheduled fall projects was to go through and eliminate duplicate photos, and another was to research what it would take to speed up my computer (aside from taking off thousands of photos, which I still plan to do, at which point I may no longer need Backblaze, after all). But AVG sent me a customer-service come-on note offering a free PC tune-up, “a fast, simple and effective way to tweak your system’s settings and get the most out of your computer.”I’m a sucker for free, so I tried it. It said it found something like 9,000 errors, bugs, flaws, duplicates, garbage and other deficiencies, and invited me to run the repair. I did.
I can’t say I have noticed much difference in the speed. I think the photos are probably the main culprit and their mass would mask any improvement. But it does feel good to have redd up the computer. And it’s not even fall yet.
Would I buy the AVG PC tune-up? Probably not.
Feeling much more secure
My nephew, Morgan, bless his heart, in about 5 minutes installed a password giving us wireless-network security on our computers. Yes, I know how stupid it was to be unsecured. But for a long time, I didn’t know our wifi WAS unsecured — I just logged on. Once I discovered the problem, I painfully researched how to solve it. I trial-and-errored my way partway through the process (punctuated by more than the usual swearing), but chickened out because I did not trust my ability to rescue our internet access if I locked us out of our system. I could imagine my husband’s reaction if I said, “Hey, Mike, you can’t work from home any more because I thought it would be fun to try a Geekypatty experiment on our internet access. It’s gone, I have no idea what I did and even less idea about how to fix it. Sorry about that.”
Fortunately, I have a tech-wizard nephew who graciously agreed to bail me out. I sat at Morgan’s elbow as he narrated the steps. It was so reassuring to watch someone who knows what he’s doing. And I didn’t feel (that) bad about failing to do this myself. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s wise to be realistic about when DIY becomes DDIY — Don’t Do It Yourself.
Add Morgan to my crackerjack I.T. team!
You have to laugh, or you’d cry
Here are the instructions we had to create for a guest on how to use the televisions in our house. My husband drafted them, I idiot-tested them and we both revised and revised for clarity. The process took a long time. And I kept wondering, why did ANY businesses ever let any consumer product out their doors that was this breathtakingly technologically illogical?
“The old-style televisions work with the singular Comcast remotes nearest to where they’re located. The exception is the guest-room TV. You have to scroll up or down through all the channels to reach your selection.
“The widescreen downstairs can require three remotes and is very frustrating — sorry. The first to use is the large black Samsung. Press ‘power.’ Press ‘menu.’ Scroll down three times with gray inverted-triangle down button on the center ring. At ‘source list’ press the round, gray button twice. To play a DVD, select ‘AV1/DVD’ and push the round, gray button. Screen will read ‘No Time Information/No Signal.’ (DVD instructions continue below.) For regular TV viewing, ignore the TV or PC options. Instead, scroll to ‘component 2′ and press the round, gray button. The TV will come on. (TV instructions continue below.)
“From this point, for DVD viewing use the small, black Philips remote. Start with the power button on top and wait a few seconds. Use the top triangle button – the one just below the power button — to open and close the sliding tray. Insert disk and use ‘OK’ to play.
“For regular TV viewing, use the gray Comcast remote. I usually only use the keypad to change stations. Let’s say you’re viewing MSNBC on channel 47 and you want to change to the Food Channel on 35. Simply press 3 and 5 on the keypad then press the oval red ‘OK/Select’ button in the middle of the remote.
“To view other expanded Comcast options, press the oval ‘menu’ button.
“And, yes, all of this is ridiculously (and no doubt needlessly) complex… All of the above, FYI, only took me about a month to figure out.”
Yes, I can
I had a success today only tangentially related to the topic of the blog, but worth noting because it was mostly due to the lessons I’ve learned from being Geeky Patty.
I replaced the rechargeable battery pack for my long-dormant Black and Decker DS 600 shrub trimmer, which is not a thing like replacing the batteries in a camera or a flashlight. It requires dismantling the tool (after calling the Black and Decker service center on Airport Way to make sure I was doing it right and to the very nice man who answered the phone, much credit for not saying “lady, we’re a service center and make our money repairing tools. Why should we give you DIY advice?”) I held my breath removing nearly a dozen screws holding the plastic casing together and thus had very little air to gasp with when a bunch of pieces fell out before I could verify the order in which they fit together.
Resolving to deal with that later, I disconnected one wire from the old battery pack but the other would not break free, so pretty sure I was going to ruin the part, I gingerly took a pair of pliers to it. Victory. Sort of, because in the process the guts were spronging out of the space they were intricately tucked into.
Long story short, I panicked a bit thinking I was going to have to take a bag of parts to the service center for reassembly, but in the end I figured it all out and got everything stuffed back in. The result: A small but intense feeling of satisfaction, and a shrub trimmer that worked the way it was supposed to.
What Geeky Patty said to herself: You can do this. Go look at the diagram. What it doesn’t show, use logic to figure out. It’s not working, so the parts must go together the other way. Take a breath and don’t give in to “I’ve screwed this up.”
I’m not sure I would have done this before the self-education of my techno-odyssey.
The battery cost almost as much as a new tool on Amazon, not that I will ever again make a purchase there in what remains of my lifetime (see below), so it would have been easy to throw the old one into the landfill and start fresh. But it was a gift from my frugal Norwegian make-it-do stepfather and my late mother, whom I miss to this day. It mattered symbolically, but also intrinsically. More and more, I try to do even small things in my life that take care of what we have.
And Geeky Patty has learned she can do things she never used to do.
