Dappled Air

Shucks, this morning my Hotmail would not download to Thunderbird any longer. Now what? I recall getting Microsoft emails about changes coming to Hotmail, but all the info was for Outlook and Outlook Express. Thank goodness for Google. A quick search revealed that, yes there was a change and also an explanation of how to get Hotmail to download again. You may ask why don't I simply switch to using Google? Well, I discovered that my computer runs better with Thunderbird as my main email client rather than another online mail browser window open. And with a couple Hotmail accounts, a Yahoo account and Gmail that all arrive in my desktop email box I am set. OK, back to the fix. Rather than creating a new email account, I just edited the current one and things are working again. Select the account in Thunderbird -> view setting for this account and make the changes like this: Server Name: pop3.live.com User Name: Your FULL email address Port: 995 (this should be automatica...

I use an external hard drive to backup, no synchronize with my working hard drive. I never really liked what backup did in Windows. I had to go to another step to get to access my files again and I did not like that at all. Until today, I was not really aware that what I am doing is called synchronizing. All I knew whas that it wasn't easy to find a program that did what I wanted it to do. I had found one called EZBack it up , but it does not seem to be updated any longer and is from 2004. As I am still on an XP it works. Then over the last week my backup hard drive has been acting up and today I just had to look into the problem and it seems to be on its last leg. That got me thinking that there had to be a better way to do what I wanted. So I googled synchronize drives and lo and behold, Microsoft has a free program that does exactly that. It is call SyncToy 2.0 and works both in XP and Vista. It has an easy interface and works well. I did a small test and like it. I even found ...

I love fonts and pictures and icons. Recently I noticed that many icons come now as png files and they are really pretty. So, I have started to collect them as well as the regular ico files. This week I have been using some of those icons as pictures for my posts. They are small but at the same time are perfect to convey the idea of the post. The image to the right is an icon. I am curious if I am the only one who has started to use icons as pictures or if there are others like me. I would love to hear your answers and am looking forward to reading your comments. I also use the ico files with my still Windows XP computer to help me find the folders I am looking for faster. Right click on the icon you want to change Select properties -> customize -> change icon Now look through the default folder or browse to the folder where you have your downloaded icons save -> select your icon -> select OK The folder will now display the new icon Related articles Extract Resources From ...

I am so proud to see that my son's company, Enomaly, is the startup of the week. I hope that in some small way I also had something to do with it. When the twins were 10 years old, (1987) they wanted a Nintendo for Christmas and I said no, and bought a Tandy computer instead. That computer didn't even have a hard drive, but 2 5¼" floppy drives. I explained that with a computer they could play games and so much more. I think my reasoning panned out. Related articles Elastic Vapour Blog entry Reuven's Biography

Cleaning up my emails I came across one I sent myself in September with a link to the website YourWebsiteValue.com. I thought it was a cute website and had planned to write about it some time, well, it got buried, but today I decided it was worth checking again. Here are the results of my searches for my own websites: Dappled Air - my blog's value is a paltry $60 Marlies' Creative Universe - my main website I have since 1997, now has a value of $9'599 My son's company website Enomaly had a value of $887 in September, but that has now jumped to $15'133 and has the potential value of $76'028 My son's personal website has a value $2'639 with a potential value of $45,624 There is even a Firefox plugin that will show the value of the website you are visiting.

This morning when I looked at my desktop with the new wallpaper, I realized that in my hurry to make the wallpaper I had copied October's calendar and forgot to adjust the days to 30 for November. I have fixed the error and all the calendars now show November correctly. I guess my error is not so bad as the one I found one day on my car windshield after an oil change. There it said February 30 was the next time I needed an oil change.

How time flies, I just realized that tomorrow is already November. So I quickly looked through my photos I took during October to find one that would make a great wallpaper. I picked the one of the flog lifting off Oat Hill Lake. Wallpaper with Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

Earlier this week I came across this really interesting video , given by Professor Michael Wesch from Kansas State University at the Library of Congress. After watching this 55 minutes video, I was thinking, why could not all teachers or professors be as interesting as this guy. Anthropology was no longer a subject that dealt with things from the past, this was an up-to-date, current learning experience. It helped me put the Internet and YouTube into perspective. I really recommend this video. Related articles by Zemanta Timeline of the Video Context Collapse Wesch on YouTube Information R/evolution Required reading - An anthropological introduction to YouTube An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube Embedded at UBC::Journalism School Students Get Less Textbooks, Collaborate More YouTube and the Meaning of Identity The Little Glass Dot

What do you do when you are computer geek and a crafter at the same time, and are looking for a unique pattern? You figure out a way to combine both. This is what I did this weekend. I have been collecting icons and then it hit me that they would be the ideal way to get unusual patterns. Most of them are already small and quite pixelated. I found this Firefox icon on the left here and that gave me the idea. It still had too many colors, but by putting a grid over the design and then coloring in the grid in Photoshop I got a workable pattern. The result is the beaded Firefox on the right. It is worked in my version of the square stitch. I add 2 beads at a time, go back one bead, go back through the second of the beads I added and repeat. It looks ok, but something is not quite right. It was supposed to be square, but it is not. So I measured the finished design. It is under 2 inches wide and it 3 inches tall and realized that the the width/length ratio was 1:1.39. Back to photoshop, I...

I don't know how many of my readers have heard of cloud computing. The only reason I am somewhat familiar with it is because my son is the inventor of "elastic Computing" and the founder of Enomaly.com . I occasionally work with him, creating the demonstration videos and tutorials. I am fast learning more and more. So what is cloud computing? "Cloud Computing provides the necessary compute infrastructure for tomorrow's computing needs."(*1) Computing will and is already moving away from being solely desktop based. The Internet will become the operating system. If you have a Google gmail account, you automatically also have access to a whole host of other services that until now you had to go out and buy a program for. This is no longer necessary and here is where cloud computing comes in. It is the new backbone, the support that provides the infrastructure for our computing needs without the need to have to purchase more and faster physical computers. Virtua...

Image by Zemanta via CrunchBase After adjusting the look of the blog, the next step is to improve the blog content itself. As synchronicity is always at play I came across some interesting articles in my RSS reader and by following the links I gathered some helpful info that I will have to analyze a little more in depth. Not the first item I came across but the one I found the most helpful was the ' Zemanta ' Firefox add-on. Once you am logged in to your blog and start to write your article Zemanta is ready and listing in and supplying helpful info like what tags to use, links to other blog articles with similar content and pictures. Related articles by Zemanta Zemanta is a Great Firefox Blog Add-On Zemanta Use Zemanta to Easily Share Blog Content How to generate some income with the blog is another area I am currently exploring , as well as how to write better copy. Here are just a few sites I have come across that I find helpful: Chris Brogan CopyBlogger - copywriting tip...

Geck Image via CrunchBase Now that I have a few months of working with blogger behind me, I just had to change the look to suite me more. Well, that was easier said than done. Wading through tons of links and checking them out took a bit of time. Then, just when I thought I had found a site or article that would be helpful, I found out once I tried the code that it did not work and I was off again to look for another site/article. Given my temperament, I just could not take an existing layout template and use it. I had to have the means of customizing to my view. I love to look at layouts for ideas and stimulation, but then I go off in my own direction. Here are a few page that I found very helpful with info on how to customize your blogger blog: Blogger Templates, Tips, Tricks and Hacks BlogU - Creative Blogging Blogger Buster - this site is a treasure trove of goodies Kid Tech Guru: 50 amazing blogger tricks Three Column Blogger Tips for new bloggers WebTalks Free Template Sites Bl...

I just realized that it is almost October and so time to offer the new wallpaper. October's photo is a dragon fly. I saw it sitting motionless on a stone while I was gardening. I guess that dragon flies need warmer temperatures to fly around and as it was early morning it was still a little too cold. That proved to be perfect for me to take closeup pictures without having to worry that it will fly away. Wallpaper with Calendar (North American format: Sun - Sat) 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1900 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1900 x 1200 pixels

My transformation of my blog is just about done for now. Most of it was easy and working with a test blog was really helpful. After looking at my 3 column blog, I realized that I needed to make the content stand out more and searched through my hard drive to find a background that would add to the design. I think I fond it and like the leaves and blue sky, it gives it that 'dappled air' look. Also putting a thin dashed border around my 2 sidebars helped visually. Now, the one thing I didn't really like was that long 'labels' list and I wanted a label cloud. I had bookmarked a site with instructions for a label cloud and decided to give it a try. It was very easy to follow them and adjust the colors to my website. I am pleased with the final result.

When I first started this blog, I just took the template that I liked and adjusted the colors to suit my style. Now after a few months I realized that I would really prefer to have 3 columns, but how to change it took a lot of research and reading. I forgot to take a screenshot, so now that I have created a test blog I set it up with the 2 col template again and some test entries and took a screenshot for reference. I tried yesterday to make the changes and it would just not work, so I switched back to the 2 column style. Then last evening I came across another site with instructions. I realized that the problem the first time around had to do with my initial template I used. I had started with the 'Minima lefty' template and following the new instructions I had found I had no problem converting to 3 columns. The only thing I had to change was the code for the original left column, to make it the right column. Taking screenshot of the 3 column layout straight after conversi...

I love to take pictures and until now I have never really used them as desktop wall paper. For some reason I just feel it is the right thing to do to use my best pictures for my desktop wallpaper calendar. After a little bit of experimenting, I realized that a photo that isn't too busy is better suited as a desktop wallpaper than a busy photo. I am happy to present my September desktop wallpaper calendar. I have create 3 different sizes that should fit a lot of monitor definitions. My LCD monitor is set to 1680 x 1050 pixels and I am currently using the 1920 x 1200 pixels wallpaper stretched and it works great. There is also one wallpaper without a calendar on it. Wallpaper with September 08 Calendar (North American format Sunday to Saturday) 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels Wallpaper without Calendar 1024 x 768 pixels 1280 x 1024 pixels 1920 x 1200 pixels

Now that I am back up and running after wiping my computer. I wanted to make some changes. Most involved switching to open source programs. But the change that had the most impact was the move of my taskbar. Before the switch I had already moved it to the top of the screen from the bottom. That however, caused problems sometimes when pop up windows hid themselves behind the bar and could not be accessed to close. So first I moved it to the right side of the screen, that would have been ok, if I were not left-handed and my mouse is on the left side of the monitor and it was just too long a reach to the right side to access stuff. Now it is happily locked on the left side of the screen, a tad wider than it showed up by default. What I like most about this setup is that all open programs and folders are now stacked one below the other.

My main website, I have it since 1997, is Marlies' Creative Universe and I use the TYPO3 content management system for it. After a steep learning curve it has served me well and I know how to use it and frankly it would be a real pain in the you know what to switch all those pages, in the hundreds, to another system. I regularly add content to keep the site fresh. I don't write anything personal on the website and never have, hence this blog. Well it seems that Firefox 3 does not get along very well with TYPO3. After my reinstallation of my operating system on my computer I also upgraded to Firefox 3 and then logged on the my website and to my horror the 3 column backend ended up with only 2 columns. That meant the main column where I tell TYPO3 what to do had disappeared. A quick internet search revealed that there is a patch, an extension , to get it back. Sure enough, that did the trick. Then, today I wanted to put a note on the site about my Firefox 3 and TYPO3 problems. ...

After 4 years, I have finally decided that it was time to reinstall my operating system. The computer would not turn off on its own any longer, I had to push the button and my 2GB of RAM seemed to get used up too fast, it was high time to do something about it. As I have a Sony Vaio computer, I have a recovery disk and the whole shebang gets plopped back in. The only problem I discovered was that I had changed the hard drive partitions and that means that they will disappear with the reinstallation. So I was busy yesterday backing everything up onto an external hard drive and then this morning I took the plunge. After a few false starts, that's when I realized what was really going to happen to everything. I was set to go. It took quite a while to copy everything back on the hard drive from the DVDs. So the first thing I did was uninstall all those programs that came preinstalled and I was never going to use. I am planning on using open source program versions this time around. The...

I just finished the 2009 computer monitor calendars . I find it very convenient to have a calendar right on the frame of my monitor. They were very popular last year and I have already gotten request for next year's calendar. So I decided it better get working on it. It took some time as I also had to create a version that starts the week with Monday and not Sunday like here in North America. I had gotten feedback about why the weeks starts with Sunday.