A collection of random, unrelated stuff today:
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The Perseid meteor shower is this weekend (Sunday night/Monday morning is the peak), and since the moon will be new, it's going to be a great show. I just have to figure out a way to see it. Watching from here probably isn't really workable - the Perseids are in the northeast, which is the direction that we don't have a good view in, unless I go stand out in someone's parking space. It would be easier if the peak were a night earlier; staying up that late when DH has to work the next morning doesn't go that well. Off to the drawing board to come up with a plan. Now that I've got a nifty camera with a bulb setting and a remote, I could (with luck) get a picture of a meteor.
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I mailed the "new" camera back for repair today. Forgot to take out the batteries first. Oops. At least it was the cheap set that came with the camera, and not my good NiMH rechargeables. With any luck, I'll have it back in two weeks.
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Yahoo had a story this morning about fast-food branding and kids. They took identical foods (burgers, milk, fries, carrot sticks), half in McDonalds wrappers, half in similar non-McD's wrappers, and offered it to pre-school age kids. Anywhere from 50-70% of the kids (depending on the food item) thought the McD's wrapper foods tasted better.
That's depressing. Makes me even more determined to keep El Burrito out of the fast-food joints as long as possible ("forever" probably being unfeasible). Sadly, McD's is a sponsor of Sesame Street, which we watch on PBS in the mornings.
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Vince Gill's being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this fall. In my book, that news is almost as good as George Strait being inducted last year. (To which I said, "about #$%# time!). However, realizing that Vince Gill is 50, and George Strait is my dad's age? Makes me feel old for some reason. :)
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Took the new stroller for a drive at the library and mall today. It's sweet - steers well, rolls easily, and fits in the trunk of my car. And we noticed something that my dad and brother will like - it's red and black, aka International Harvester tractor colors. Grandpa will approve. :)
And we bought a few neat books at the library today. It's the "Classics and Oldies" two-day sale, which means lots of books, and no parking space available.
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Sick fish in the aquarium. Just one, and I'm guessing it's just old age. She (I think) spends most of the time resting on the gravel. She was like this about two weeks ago, but rallied for a while. Not sure if she'll recover or not. I doubt it; wish there was a decent way to euthanize a tropical fish, other than sticking the poor girl in the freezer or something.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Email, computers, and rotten moods
Fair warning to anyone (hah!) who might want to visit: I'm in a lousy mood today. And for a few reasons, all of which are illogical. But there you go.
My email is finally working as it should. Who would think that switching email programs would take three freaking days?!?!? I installed Thunderbird Thursday afternoon, and finally was able to download and read my incoming email late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. And that involved both DH (the computer guru) and myself staying up until 5:00 blinking a.m. on Saturday morning (aka Friday night). On more than one occasion (two that I remember specifically) I was ready to chuck the whole thing out a window somewhere.
After 2 six-hour attempts to download the whole 9-year collection of email from Eudora, DH had the brilliant idea to import it in batches. Thunderbird doesn't offer that as an option, but renaming a few files here and there and moving them to the other hard drive made it work. We also used a handy little utility that saved all the read-status information during the import, and discovered that a blank space at the beginning of a folder name confused Thunderbird into skipping that folder during the import.
Also, Olympus is strange. Their confirmation email to me when I bought the camera said "email us if you need help." So I did. Their reply was to call their toll-free number. Now, why couldn't they skip the whole "email us" bit and go straight to the phone call? Anyway, the final verdict is what I expected - the camera has to go back for repair. Estimated 7-10 days for repair, plus travel time each way.
Joy.
My email is finally working as it should. Who would think that switching email programs would take three freaking days?!?!? I installed Thunderbird Thursday afternoon, and finally was able to download and read my incoming email late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. And that involved both DH (the computer guru) and myself staying up until 5:00 blinking a.m. on Saturday morning (aka Friday night). On more than one occasion (two that I remember specifically) I was ready to chuck the whole thing out a window somewhere.
After 2 six-hour attempts to download the whole 9-year collection of email from Eudora, DH had the brilliant idea to import it in batches. Thunderbird doesn't offer that as an option, but renaming a few files here and there and moving them to the other hard drive made it work. We also used a handy little utility that saved all the read-status information during the import, and discovered that a blank space at the beginning of a folder name confused Thunderbird into skipping that folder during the import.
Also, Olympus is strange. Their confirmation email to me when I bought the camera said "email us if you need help." So I did. Their reply was to call their toll-free number. Now, why couldn't they skip the whole "email us" bit and go straight to the phone call? Anyway, the final verdict is what I expected - the camera has to go back for repair. Estimated 7-10 days for repair, plus travel time each way.
Joy.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Fun with Email, part 4
4:10 p.m.
After almost six hours of importing email, Thunderbird errored and crashed. So we're going for round 6 of the email import. Oy.
FedEx delivered my new-ish (refurbished) FE-120 camera, which also has a snag. The card won't click into the compartment. Sigh.
Sucky day.
After almost six hours of importing email, Thunderbird errored and crashed. So we're going for round 6 of the email import. Oy.
FedEx delivered my new-ish (refurbished) FE-120 camera, which also has a snag. The card won't click into the compartment. Sigh.
Sucky day.
Fun with Email, part 3
So, it's almost noon here. Thunderbird has been importing my Eudora mail (for the 5th time) since about 9:30 this morning, and if the status bar is right, it's not even half done yet. I'm glad I started it before the Burrito's breakfast, and I wish I'd started it right after I woke up.
Of course, this means that my 2 a.m. "Aha" moment was probably right, because it's taking much longer to import this time. Apparently the problem was the workaround I was using to keep certain folders near the top of Eudora's folder list. I put a space at the beginning of the folder name - " Stuff" rather than "Stuff" - to keep some of them at the top. After taking out those spaces, the import seems to be going well.
And, joy, after 5 tries at importing, I'll have 5 copies of some things. Plus the fun of setting up all the email filters again, although Thunderbird's Junk procedures might make some of the filters unnecessary. I hope.
Of course, this means that my 2 a.m. "Aha" moment was probably right, because it's taking much longer to import this time. Apparently the problem was the workaround I was using to keep certain folders near the top of Eudora's folder list. I put a space at the beginning of the folder name - " Stuff" rather than "Stuff" - to keep some of them at the top. After taking out those spaces, the import seems to be going well.
And, joy, after 5 tries at importing, I'll have 5 copies of some things. Plus the fun of setting up all the email filters again, although Thunderbird's Junk procedures might make some of the filters unnecessary. I hope.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Fun with Email, part 2
Well, after at least two hours (non-consecutive) of fiddling with TBird, I've run into the first big snag. After three attempts to import my email from Eudora, only part of the folders are being imported. And, of course, the important folders are the ones that aren't moving over, and I can't seem to find any helpful information on this sort of thing.
Gah. This is why I hate switching software. I've had Eudora since 1998.
Gah.
Gah. This is why I hate switching software. I've had Eudora since 1998.
Gah.
Fun with Email
So I bit the bullet about an hour ago, and started installing Mozilla Thunderbird as my new email program, replacing my old (version 4.2) much-loved, although often frustrating, Eudora. I didn't have a choice. Prodigy, now owned by/called AT&T Yahoo, is my ISP, and they're requiring email clients to have SSL capabilities. My old Eudora can't do that, and the new Eudora is going to be based on Thunderbird anyway, when it's finished. So, since I've been happy with Firefox for at least a year now, I'm switching to TBird.
So far? Lots of hassle getting the accounts set up, mostly because I've got five email accounts, and even though there are only two domains to deal with (prodigy and my webspace provider), it's always a pain figuring out the little details. Even with Eudora open and copying the info directly over, it's a pain. Plus, I think I'm still having problems with the SMTP server at Prodigy. That was the subject of about six weeks of pain in the #$$ hassle when SBC Yahoo bought Prodigy. It took many, many emails to the Customer Service robot, and eventually a live-chat with someone at Yahoo, to get it fixed. The "official" paperwork had two different sets of SMTP/POP info, and neither one worked. The live chat helper gave me two more sets of info, and finally one worked. Never got an explanation for why, but apparently I'm using some SMTP server that's not mentioned in the help files. Huh.
It looks a lot like Outlook (not a plus, in my book). And it seems to be slow at downloading email. That could be a problem, since I somehow get a lot of email. Seriously - we go out of town for the weekend, and I can have 500 messages waiting for me. Most of those are fluff, I belong to a few hobby Yahoo-lists that are mostly listing things for sale, and they generate a lot of traffic. Ditto for the Freecycle list and a few others.
On the up side, it's downloaded a few emails that for some reason Eudora wouldn't download. I could see them in the webmail interface, but even after a year, they were still sitting on the server instead of my hard drive. Bizarre, no?
Something I don't like: The status bar shows the number of emails to download, but only for one account at a time (I think). Eudora will show the status for all five accounts at once, which is what I'm used to. I can't think of a serious need to know that, but I like being able to see it.
Getting my email filters set up again will be a tremendous pain, since TBird apparently can't import settings from Eudora without crashing, and I have sooo many filters it's not funny. And of course Eudora doesn't seem to have a way to print them out. Sigh.
On the other hand, if the Junk filter works, I'll be soooo happy.
So far? Lots of hassle getting the accounts set up, mostly because I've got five email accounts, and even though there are only two domains to deal with (prodigy and my webspace provider), it's always a pain figuring out the little details. Even with Eudora open and copying the info directly over, it's a pain. Plus, I think I'm still having problems with the SMTP server at Prodigy. That was the subject of about six weeks of pain in the #$$ hassle when SBC Yahoo bought Prodigy. It took many, many emails to the Customer Service robot, and eventually a live-chat with someone at Yahoo, to get it fixed. The "official" paperwork had two different sets of SMTP/POP info, and neither one worked. The live chat helper gave me two more sets of info, and finally one worked. Never got an explanation for why, but apparently I'm using some SMTP server that's not mentioned in the help files. Huh.
It looks a lot like Outlook (not a plus, in my book). And it seems to be slow at downloading email. That could be a problem, since I somehow get a lot of email. Seriously - we go out of town for the weekend, and I can have 500 messages waiting for me. Most of those are fluff, I belong to a few hobby Yahoo-lists that are mostly listing things for sale, and they generate a lot of traffic. Ditto for the Freecycle list and a few others.
On the up side, it's downloaded a few emails that for some reason Eudora wouldn't download. I could see them in the webmail interface, but even after a year, they were still sitting on the server instead of my hard drive. Bizarre, no?
Something I don't like: The status bar shows the number of emails to download, but only for one account at a time (I think). Eudora will show the status for all five accounts at once, which is what I'm used to. I can't think of a serious need to know that, but I like being able to see it.
Getting my email filters set up again will be a tremendous pain, since TBird apparently can't import settings from Eudora without crashing, and I have sooo many filters it's not funny. And of course Eudora doesn't seem to have a way to print them out. Sigh.
On the other hand, if the Junk filter works, I'll be soooo happy.
Well, Duh! Part Dos
Another "Duh!" moment last night, when contemplating El Burrito and the Great Crib Wars (which are tapering off, but not totally over).
Since lately he's usually awake when we put him to bed, we leave the light on. Also, because when he's fighting the idea of sleeping, he may sometimes play in the crib (when he's not crying pitifully and loudly). So we don't like to leave the poor boy sitting in the dark crying; it's not quite as pitiful when the light's on.
It dawned on me last night, for some reason, that he'd probably sleep better if we finally got off our rumps and hung up his night light (okay, it's a wall light, and ours is a crescent moon instead of this star, but still). You know, the one we've had since he was born, that his favorite aunt got him at Ikea and brought all the way from Georgia, along with the matching star-and-comet mobile? The one that uses a little 40-watt or smaller bulb. Because the light right now, duh, probably isn't conducive to sleeping. It's the floor lamp that we had in that room back when it was an office/library/general "stuff" sort of room. The floor lamp with three movable heads (standard college-dorm lamp), and 3 150-watt-equivalent CFL bulbs in it, because this place has lousy light and I needed to see what I was doing on the PC, bills, etc.
What can I say? The Burrito has always been pretty good about sleeping anywhere and everywhere - noise and light haven't bothered him (which I attribute to the nights in the nursery at the hospital). He's slept through doorbells, dropped pans, and the installation of a peephole in the door 8 feet away, complete with electric drill. Although not the vacuum cleaner.
So, today or tomorrow, we will clear a path to an appropriate wall socket, because "his" room is still about 70% storage and 30% his, and the nearest socket would put the cord right in the reachable-from-the-crib zone. And this weekend DH & I will be hanging up a certain wall light and matching mobile.
And I will continue to feel like a twit because it took this long to realize it.
Since lately he's usually awake when we put him to bed, we leave the light on. Also, because when he's fighting the idea of sleeping, he may sometimes play in the crib (when he's not crying pitifully and loudly). So we don't like to leave the poor boy sitting in the dark crying; it's not quite as pitiful when the light's on.
It dawned on me last night, for some reason, that he'd probably sleep better if we finally got off our rumps and hung up his night light (okay, it's a wall light, and ours is a crescent moon instead of this star, but still). You know, the one we've had since he was born, that his favorite aunt got him at Ikea and brought all the way from Georgia, along with the matching star-and-comet mobile? The one that uses a little 40-watt or smaller bulb. Because the light right now, duh, probably isn't conducive to sleeping. It's the floor lamp that we had in that room back when it was an office/library/general "stuff" sort of room. The floor lamp with three movable heads (standard college-dorm lamp), and 3 150-watt-equivalent CFL bulbs in it, because this place has lousy light and I needed to see what I was doing on the PC, bills, etc.
What can I say? The Burrito has always been pretty good about sleeping anywhere and everywhere - noise and light haven't bothered him (which I attribute to the nights in the nursery at the hospital). He's slept through doorbells, dropped pans, and the installation of a peephole in the door 8 feet away, complete with electric drill. Although not the vacuum cleaner.
So, today or tomorrow, we will clear a path to an appropriate wall socket, because "his" room is still about 70% storage and 30% his, and the nearest socket would put the cord right in the reachable-from-the-crib zone. And this weekend DH & I will be hanging up a certain wall light and matching mobile.
And I will continue to feel like a twit because it took this long to realize it.
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