Sort of…and eventually. The victory came slowly…but it came eventually as it always does if you’re persistent. Something I learned a long time ago about complex HF radio systems – like the ones used by our government and foreign ones as well which use something called FS-145 ALE, they can be complicated. But the key thing to keep in mind is that the ALE controller, related computer, the HF radio, antenna…all of it – has to conform to pretty clearly established rules of physics.
Same kind of thinking went in to solving the computer troubles around here: There ain’t no magic and the laws of physics, subset computer science apply. So after admittedly a long time I finally got to the point this week of understanding that I was experiencing an intermittent fail on a key 1 TB small-sized hard drive. This was after Spin Rite and lots of other diagnostics tried to fix it, all to no avail.
Sure enough, pop in a new Western Digital 1 TB ‘black caviar’ drive and runs just fine. And now, I’m back to the lowest score in the Window Experience Index being a 5.9 score limited by the hard drive’s transfer rate and that has me thinking about a solid-state drive (SSD) or a clone in RAID but for now, everything is fine.
There’s still a bit more to go – like trying to find out if I can re-download some music off Amazon (will advise on that) and there’s the little matter of putting up an ESATA backup so I can just mirror the whole thing with North Ghost and next time this happens (which solving it assures it won’t) I’ll just pop in a new drive, mount the image and done.
If this page looks a little different, that’s because I also got around to finally installing Office 2010 on my main computer. And in the process discovered that the version of Expression Web I had which seemed OK for a few client sites and even development of the National Dream Center site, is really horribly limited because you can’t just tack on this, or that formatting on-the-fly. CSS compliance isn’t like – way up there – on the shopping list.
Speaking of which, a reader/geek/small business guy I was talking to up in the Northeast last night (between fits of snow shoveling) was wondering about the ‘publication process’ I go through every morning around here and why I am such a fan of FrontPage 2003, which near as I can tell is the best simple ‘git ‘er done‘ editor ever.
This came after I bemoaned not being able to use the familiar copy and paste-Special commands which are the most used feature around here for getting highly formatted information of press releases of 2-billion different sizes and into this site. He admitted reading the blog version of this site which you can see at www.urbansurvival.com/blog if you haven’t see it before.
The blog approach seems like the better choice, but there are drawbacks to it. For one, the blog format is much more restricted on the fly. Secondly, it doesn’t behave – even with the latest updates from WordPress – like I need it to for functions like publishing the .MOBI version of this site, or going Kindle, which I’m also working on as time allows.
So Wednesday’s big adventure (read: time sink) was trying to find a new web editor which would do as well as FrontPage 2003 which is not 100% compatible with Office 2010′s Outlook version – which has macro issues and one registry glitch that I’ve found so far. Went through KomPozer, SeaMonkey, my CoffeeCup suite, and a few others, but none had that ‘just right’ mix of features I was after: Down and dirty hand coding it I need it, one-click access to the underlying code to embed and then edit YouTube displays sizing, and a spell checker which I’ve threatened to use one of these first days.
More happens around here than meets the eye: At 7:55 (plus or minus a few minutes for news flow) the www.urbansurvival.com site is uploaded. Then we publish the .MOBI version for www.urbansurvival.com/Mobile readers.
Next, there’s the RSS feed which is written (Tristana RSSWriter) and send off to Feedburn and God knows where else. Next, the code from the UrbanSurvival content is pasted into a different layout on the mirror versioin of this site which lives at www.independenceJournal.com and then after a quick pass for idiot-level writing problems, it’s then posted on the www.urbansurvival.com/blog site.
Then I collapse and go seeking coffee – depending on the day.
All of which leaves us with the following:
- This page may look a bit different (more white space) a consequence of playing with a half-dozen HTML editors yesterday, each of which has its own idea of what the underlying code to this site is supposed to look like.
- If you ever get an ‘error 1402′ – can’t write to a registry key’ and discover in RegEdit (a nuclear war-level tool which should not be available to anything from computer geeks because you can break everything with it), try turning off your Antivirus Firewall before installing. What’s Homer Simpson say? Doh!!!
- Remember that computers obey the same Rules of Universe as bar glasses dropped over a tile floor; the rules of physics just seem not to apply to computers. More than anything, you’ve got to have this alpha–dog relationship with your computer, or you will lose.
I approached this computer problem knowing that a) I may buy a used Mac from a reader b) I had a working copy of everything on my ‘grab and go’ laptop, c) I know I’m going to die anyway (not in a hurry though!) so before I go I’m gong whip this computer’s butt – and more than anything, I suspect it’s this “I’m in charge of you, you miserable sack of sh*t….” attitude which in the end is what reminds computers, dog, colleagues, and maybe politicians eventually, who’s really in charge around here.
When we got to the office this morning (we being me and Zeus the Cat, editor in chief), I was going to change that wider column to the left over
<—–here, but I thought I’d leave it alone for now. A reminder that one of Ure’s Axioms holds true even in 2011:
If a hammer won’t fix it, it’s a software issue.
Dog Dumping
Told you yesterday about the issue of (big) dog dumping which seems to be a kind of macroeconomic phenomena. Reader response was overwhelmingly anti dumpers, but, as you’d expect, such people are often not especially responsible.
“Hi George,
Universe sends you a free (or working cheap for leftovers) security guard and you pass him up!
Maybe universe wants your neighbour to collect the reward http://www.fidofinder.com/lost-dogs-texas.php (quite a few retrievers)
Don’t you fancy carrying a 12 bore on the Martini mile? He could be the new Urbansurvival mascott, and fetch your dinner
)
All the best mate, great site content as usual, blah blah
…And thanks for the nice blah, blah…
One of the hardest things to figure out in life is when “Enough is enough!” I need another pet around here like I need more ham radio gear…. I continue to refer back to It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff.
Speaking of which, with a half a room full of unused ham gear, I was able to successfully decline a most tempting offer from a local ham who is also going through the ‘gear cleaning’ phase and he’s offering some gems/goodies which would fit my collection and all for a bargain price.
Part of the diet, get fit, get light/mobile mindset is actually changing behaviors, so managed to call and decline the offer which was most generous. Just have so much going on right now with things and stuff that avoiding the tyranny of things is becoming something of a chore.
Fixing the computer fit into that, btw: I could have had a new one shipped out overnight and been done with it. BUT I’m going through the fix, recycle, reuse process so I will stay the course. Damn, that’s hard, though. Sparklies Clif calls ‘em.
Sage Advice
Now that your net worth has been put on an involuntary diet, perhaps a reader of SurvivalWoman’s post “Be angry about the economy but don’t be angry about life” will help.
If not try aspirin. And voting….
Thursday at the WuJo
Stir-Fried Irish Dept
OK, so the other day we mentioned how there seems to be a statistically significant chance of alien abduction is someone is part Irish and part Cherokee.
So this this morning, we’ve got another line of inquiry developing among readers.
Idea goes to the sinking of Atlantis, and where the survivors ended up and how that band of folks has much faster healing capabilities and resilience that most other humans…. Comes from reading about the descendants of Atlantis over at the RH Negative Factor website.
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Then there’s the reader email with the tagline:
Ophiuchus is Jesus. The 12 disciples are the rest of the zodiac. How is that for mythological symbolism?
Stellar observation…
Send your comments to george@ure.net
Reader Action Department: (Or: Places to go to blow your dough?)
Now on our premium content site: Peoplenomics.com
Beyond Adventures in Insurance Land
One of our readers asked me to focus a little bit on insurance companies and looking back on things, I see that I haven’t done much writing in that field, so why not use this as a dandy exercise in learning how to really “learn” an industry, by applying some of the basics of our Everything’s a Business Model outlook on life? If, along the way, you get some ideas that can help you save a buck – or more – then that’s fine, too. Insurance companies are and are not a threat to the economy, as we shall explain.
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Home Famine Protection
Amazing gardens in about 2 square feet of floor space: www.mygroponics.com
Fight “Super Cookies”!
The new version of Maxa Research “Cookie Manager” is available for download at the following link. Trial is free, unlocked version is $35. Keeps your computer from getting gummed up with cookies.
Toss in Malwarebytes, a good firewall, and a constantly updated anti-virus program and then you have a chance at safe computing…
Strange Dreams?
Post your weird dreams to help our research along:
“Live on $10,000″ A Year
Having a hard time making ends meet? (Like who isn’t, right?) A good starting point to better match up income with outgo is our $10 e-book “How to Live on $10,000 a Year…or less!”
It’s an automatic download. It’s written in an information dense style: The whole thing runs about 65 pages, but it gives you a vision of how to not only live on the cheap, but also how to migrate up the economic foodchain if you have a little hustle left. A bonus section called “How to Build Anything” should instill confidence if you’ve never taken on a home improvement/home creation project before, too….. Click here for the index and details.
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Last week’s report is always here.
