Wednesday,
February 20, 2008

Sudden end of the
Tour de Force!

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Here are a few of my favorite online haunts:

REALTOR.ca
[This is the site I visit to fantasize about living in Toronto again, which is almost every single day during the winter]

Jonathan Cainer's Zodiac Forecasts
[This is where I visit in the morning, when I need a positive spin on things past, present and future.]

Living Local
[This is where I go to see what Canadians are up to, sometimes I even buy things from the businesses listed there.]

Environment Canada Weather
[This is the site I visit every morning, and before every road trip during the winter]

Attila says I am an incredibly patient person, with a few striking exceptions. One of the exceptions he is talking about is deliveries. He is talking about toys. He is talking about technology. He is correct. Yesterday, today and every day until that UPS van arrives in the driveway I will be mentally pacing the floors.

Let me explain, from the beginning.

Attila has begun to use the computer for various recreational activities. We need two computers online simultaneously. We need a second computer to wirelessly share the dialup connection.

The reliable old computer we use has two issues. Issue one is age; it cannot burn DVDs and it cannot economically support wireless software routing. I can buy a card to accommodate wireless software routing, but it would be an antique and no cheaper than new equipment. It isn't worth the investment; buying parts for really old computers to bring them up to today's technological standards.

The second issue is security. I recently received this information on an email list:

"Virus from China the gift that keeps on giving
Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008|
An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind."

Now, hoax or fact, it matters not. It is possible that this sort of attack could take place. So, Attila and I have decided to devote a computer to online purchases, no additional software installs, no email, no web browsing, no games, and no peripherals. The G4 is perfect for such an endeavor. I propose to backup the hard drive, wipe it clean, reinstall the OS and vital software that has been downloaded from reliable sites over a period of years and run everything through the latest anti-virus software.

So, at last I come to the crucial core of my impatience. I am waiting for a new Macintosh computer to arrive, and a new printer/fax/scanner. It is a bottom-of-the-line iMac. It will be at least twice as fast as the G4, and it will give me a chance to have a peek at the newest Macintosh operating system, currently OS X 10.5.2, Leopard. The G4 is running OS X 10.3.9, which does everything we need.

The new printer shipped on Monday and I am still waiting for it to reach us here in the bush. As soon as it arrives I will send in a rebate coupon for a reimbursement that will bring the price of the printer down to $19.95.

The computer is not due to ship until Thursday at the earliest, so I will have to wait up to two weeks for it to arrive.

And this is when impatience enters stage left! The child in me thinks, "Two weeks, OK, BUT really it could be here any day now, any time that truck might pull up in the driveway. I don't want to miss the delivery. I will have to watch carefully to make sure the delivery person doesn't drive away and claim no one was home, without even getting out of the vehicle to knock on the door." (This happened ONCE with a delivery company, the child in me never forgot about it.)

And so I wait; Attila watches; and the world of commerce trundles along unaware of the private drama unfolding in the deep woods of Canada.

See what Attila means? When it comes to toys I am the epitome of impatience and I don't even try to contain it! After a decision is carefully considered and made, to make a purchase, I can completely indulge the immediacy of my desire. This is where I can afford to be childlike, to ignore common sense, to let my feelings take complete control over reason. However, as the days pass the anticipation will wane until it disappears completely... then the computer will arrive with a flourish and I'll be off on the new adventure, having completely forgotten these days of impatience.

The purchase of a new computer brings our Eight Weeks of Winter Tour de Force to an abrupt end. We are now in the third week of the Tour de Force, having purchased the chrysanthemums in the first week, episodes of Northern Exposure in the second week and now a computer in the third week. Attila and I feel that we had better stop the Tour de Force, before we end up with investment property in Florida!

Luckily, with a new computer on the way I am well occupied, collecting compatible software versions and mapping out where the computers will sit and how they will be used. Then the computer will arrive and I will be busy for a few days getting all the software installed and checking it all out for bugs. And after that I will spend week’s bopping all over the Mac web sites to look at interesting software packages, that up until now I have ignored, as they won't run on the G4.

In addition, my current projects are largely incomplete. I have not converted a record album from analog to digital in weeks. I have not worked on my genealogy database in weeks. I have been plodding away revising the code on this site, and still have quite a bit to accomplish in that department. The only task I have completed is the move to a new domain host, which was quite time consuming. Well, on second thought there are still a few loose ends there too...

The universe approves. The sun shone off and on yesterday and is out in full force this morning. The sky is a brilliant blue. Mist is sleeping in the sun by the window and by golly I think I'll grab the laptop and get over there in the chair beside her and get going on the code revisions for this site.



Top of Page
RECIPES :: Cast

Wordly Distractions

easy chair in the sunshine
February sunshine!



Airwaves
You'll Never Know
performed by Ella Fitzgerald



On The Screen
Northern Exposure
Soapy Sanderson



Quote
When in doubt, tell the truth.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)



Weather
Sunny
Temp -12.1°C
Press 102.0 kPa / rising
Visibility 15 km
Humidity 52%
Wind Chill -21
Dew Point -19.9°C
Wind Speed NW 21 km/h
gust 32 km/h
 

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal
Photography
Poetry
by Maggie Turner

Canadian Maggie Turner writes and publishes poetry, photography, and a personal journal online. Her work reflects the current way of life in Canada, embracing Canada's past, present, and future in a unique portrayal of everyday life. Maggie's voice is one of the many that actively depict the rich diversity of Canadian culture.

Photography: "a term which comes from the Greek words photos (light) and graphos (drawing). A photograph is made with a camera by exposing film to light in order to create a negative. The negative is then used in the darkroom to print a photograph (positive) onto light-sensitive paper.
Source: University of Arizona Glossary

Poetry: "a form of speech or writing that harmonizes the music of its language with its subject. To read a great poem is to bring out the perfect marriage of its sound and thought in a silent or voiced performance. At least from the time of Aristotle's Poetics, drama was conceived of as a species of poetry."
Source: Creative Studios

Journal: " "Though a journal may be many things - a treasury, a storehouse, a jewelry box, a laboratory, a drafting board, a collector's cabinet, a snapshot album, a history, a travelogue..., a letter to oneself - it has some definable characteristics. It is a record, an entry-book, kept regularly, though not necessarily daily.... Some (entries) will be nearly illegible, written in the dark in the middle of the night.... Not only is it a record for oneself, but of oneself. Every memorable journal, any successful journal, is honest. Nothing sham, phony, false...." (Dorothy Lambert from Ken Macrorie's book, Writing to be Read )
A journal is a way to keep track of your thoughts about what you read... as well as what you did on any given day."
Source: Journal Writing

A Blog is an online journal created by server side software, often hosted by a commercial interest.

"The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[4] on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.[5][6][7] Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_blogging


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