Blog Update

If you have been checking my blog over the past week, you may have noticed that I am working on the design. I chose a new template that I like very much but would like to use my own photos as a background. I don't have it just the way I want it yet, so things may continue to change for awhile. I finally got the photo to stop scrolling with the text and not to tile, at least on my big computers anyway. Things still aren't working right on the iPhone. Please bear with me.

I am also working on the post on probiotics and hope to have it up soon. I am still researching it and I keep finding new things to talk about. It's a complex subject.

Dim Those Lights

For those of you who tend to spend late nights at the computer, here is a great free program called f.lux, that will change the lighting on your computer monitor to sync with daylight and nighttime. The idea is to turn off the blue light after sunset. Blue light especially messes with your circadian rhythm making it harder for you to fall asleep. Blue light during the day is good, blue light at night is not.

Thanks to Mark at Mark's Daily Apple for this tip and an interesting post on How Light Affects Your Sleep, something I have blogged about several times (here, here, and here).

But then most nights (the nights that I am not out playing the violin somewhere), I don't even turn the computer or the TV on anymore and I start my getting-to-bed-routine at 9:00 pm. It's impossible to get my bedroom totally dark, so I wear a sleep mask. And I do like waking up to the light. I just peek out from under the mask to gauge the time. No alarm clock.

ADDENDUM

Well I just uninstalled f.lux. While it worked great at reducing the glare, it was always running in the background and making the operating system (XP) work very hard. Maybe I had the settings wrong. And maybe I just have a sick computer. (We knew that.)

The Sun and Auroras

Thanks to Dr. Eades and Twitter, I found out about a really neat iPhone app this morning. It's called 3D Sun and was written by an astrophysicist in collaboration with NASA scientists. It brings realtime satellite videos of the sun to your iPhone. Your phone will even notify you when a significant event is happening. If you don't have an iPhone, you can still see the same images on the web at the STEREO (Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory) website. (The sun looks green because the satellites are taking images in the extreme ultraviolet range.)

Watching the sun and perhaps catching a solar flare while it is happening would be exciting enough, but the app also offers links to other great stuff including images of the auroras as well as movies of previous flares. One fascinating movie shows a comet getting eaten up by the sun.

Apparently we are having some pretty spectacular auroras right now. The sun's activity, manifested in many ways including sunspots, is picking up again after being at its cyclical minimum. Auroras are caused by the geomagnetic storms that this solar activity originates in the atmosphere of our own Earth due to the solar wind. (You can see a movie of a comet's tail waving in the solar wind here.)

The northern (or southern) lights, as auroras are sometimes called, are caused by the excitation of electrons in the upper atmosphere. The colors come from the kind of atom or molecule that gets an electron or has an electron drop to a lower energy state. Oxygen atoms emit a green or brownish-red photon depending on the amount of energy absorbed. Nitrogen atoms emit a blue photon if they gain an electron and red if they are returning to the ground state after being in an excited state. The auroras form shapes because the electrons move along the magnetic field lines. (This is an extreme over-simplification.) When the disturbances are great, the lights can be seen as far south as the southern US and more temperate parts of Europe. For more information on auroras and how they are formed click here. For more on shapes, click here.

I have never seen the aurora. Someday I hope to. I think it would be well worth braving the freezing temps to view something as spectacular as this photo taken by Marketa Stanczykova in Iceland just a few days ago on February 16.

New Laptop

Yay! I'm in! I am currently visiting my son in Arizona and have not been able to sign in to Blogspot for several days. I was getting very frustrated because there were so many things I wanted to post. The problem was my old Sony Vaio laptop which I brought with me was dying and couldn't be prodded to continue to perform anymore. I've had it since 2001. The first thing to go was the DVD burner. That happened several years ago. Then I couldn't even read DVDs or CDs which meant that I couldn't install new programs or updates that came on discs. Then the batteries wouldn't hold their charge anymore and Sony no longer makes that model. Generic batteries proved to be worthless. The wireless card wouldn't work after my son and I spent hours trying to get me connected to his network. But worst of all, the old laptop had only 20GB of memory which gets me nowhere now that I have a new camera that takes 8MB photos.

So today, my son helped me pick out a new laptop—another Sony Vaio. It's an early birthday present to myself. Now I can watch DVD movies in bed again, take exercise DVDs with me when I travel, download all the pictures I want (it even has a built-in card reader), and connect to the Internet with ease. So far, Windows Vista has not been too difficult to figure out and it sure is fast, especially when handling those 8MB photos. I'll have to wait until I get home to install some of my favorite programs like Paint Shop Pro, but now I can install the latest version.

I still don't know what the problem was signing in to my blog, but now that I'm in I can post all those great pictures I've taken here in sunny AZ.

Aaaargh!

After spending days trying to import my thousands of email messages that I don't want to lose into Microsoft's new Windows Live Mail because they told me that they would no longer support Outlook Express after June 30th, now they tell me they are postponing the date that the switch will become irrevocable, and are looking into updating Outlook Express to accommodate DAV. I guess they got a lot of complaints. Well now I am complaining! Make up your mind, guys!!

Computers drive me nuts. Why do they have to keep updating things? I am tired of wasting time learning new programs or re-learning old programs that have been updated. Quicken forced an update on me just before tax time. They could have planned that better! And to be honest, I don't like the new Windows Live Mail. For one thing, it is slower than Outlook Express and seems to have a few bugs. While it is very similar to Express, there are some differences that I find annoying. I might be able to set it up to work exactly like Express, but that takes time.

I'd much rather spend my time knitting or gardening or blogging.

Clean Up, Clean Up, Everyone, Clean Up!

That's the little chant my daughter sings to get Toddler C. to help with cleaning up his toys. She makes a game of it and it works! He helps to fill the toy box and the plastic bins with a smile and a song. I've been chanting that little ditty all morning and all last week, too. I was way behind in getting rid of the clutter around here. But since I want to have my other grandson come and stay with me for a week this summer, I have to clean up what used to be his father's bedroom and what is now the den.

I started with the books. There are books everywhere in this house due to the fact that I am a biblioholic. My husband had his fair share, but I way outstripped him. When my son's bedroom became the den, we installed huge bookcases along one wall. I thought I would never fill them. Hah! They are overflowing as you can see. Most of the shelves have books behind the visible books. And I am ashamed to admit, all those books are mine except for one lone shelf way at the end up at the top where my husband had a few books. But to be fair, he had an office at work where he could hoard his stash and I have found boxes out in the garage filled with his college textbooks. We also shared many interests, so the books on astronomy, birds, and quantum mechanics were read by both of us.

I even have books in the pantry—cookbooks, what else? Now that I am a low-carber, I don't have shelves and shelves of packaged goods like cereals, cookies, crackers, etc. anymore, so I filled the shelves with cookbooks. Then they are handy when I need them. The living room has a fancy bookcase filled with art books. I never could resist buying the beautiful coffee-table-type books they sell at exhibitions on the exhibition. I will have much more restraint in the future because now there is no more room.

OK, I know the obvious is to throw some away, or give some away (to whom?) I am doing that. Just this morning, I threw away about five books I bought in 1973 on how to get yourself published. Blogging on the Internet has taken care of that urge. In fact, the Internet has taken care of a lot of research problems. I don't need any of the directories or encyclopedic type books anymore, because I get that information from the web now. Besides, those kinds of books are out of date before they even get printed. And now there's Google Books.com, where you can find all kinds of goodies. I recently found some out-of-print genealogy books there that I was able to download as PDFs. I am keeping my huge, unabridged Random House dictionary, though. I don't want to have to fire up the computer just to look up one little word.

Speaking of the computer, I am cleaning that up, too. Literally. Here is a link to Microsoft's tips on cleaning your computer. At first, I thought they meant disk cleaning and de-fragging, but they mean actually opening the thing up and using a Q-tip to clean the dust out of the inside. But I am doing the disk-cleaning and de-fragging, too. It's so much easier than other types of cleaning. You just click the mouse on OK and the computer does the rest.

Once you get started, says my daughter throwing things away gets easier. I'm not so sure. It isn't as easy as it used to be to throw things away. I feel obligated to re-cycle, and then there is hazardous waste to consider. You can't just throw things in the garbage bin anymore and be done with it. In fact, I have a book on how to simplify your life by Scaling Down, which tells you what to do with your stuff. Even though I have no plans to move anywhere, I found the book helpful. Reading it also allowed me to procrastinate a bit longer. But now, where do I put the book?

The garden needs cleaning up, too. The spring growth has made many plants too large, so they need pruning and cutting back, and the weeds have taken over my herb garden. But that's another post.

Did I mention all the music I have collected over the years?

A Lesson in Vulnerability

I was powerless all day yesterday. Southern California Edison was making "repairs or upgrades" during which time, we were told, electrical power in my neighborhood would be "interrupted more than one time" from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. OK, I thought, a few minutes here and there. In reality, the power went off at 10:19 am and didn't come back on until 8:23 pm. That's 10 hours without all the things that not only have made our lives livable but are essential to our existence. It made me realize how little prepared I am if "the Big One" should ever hit. (For those who live outside of California, I am referring to the huge earthquake that they predict is certain to happen in the next 30 years or so.)

Until the electricity goes off for some reason, we just don't realize how much we depend on it. The obvious things that upset your routine, to say the least, include no TV or computers, hence no Internet access, no radio unless you have a battery operated one, no appliances like the washer and dryer, the stove, the refrigerator, dishwasher. No hot water after the water in the tank runs out. No small appliances will work either. No can openers, blenders, etc. The garage door won't open so if your car is in there it is useless, or if it is out, it stays out. (I think there is a way to open my garage door manually, but I don't know how to do it.) One very important item that is useless without power is a cordless phone. Luckily, I still have my old phone plugged in and I happily discovered that it still works.

The thing that I worried about the most was the refrigerator because I had just done my weekly shopping at the farmers' market and it was full of fresh food. On my diet, I don't eat any packaged or canned goods so I really would be in trouble if I lost power for more than a few days. If you don't open the refrigerator door much, the food will stay cold and the frozen foods will stay frozen, but then how do you eat? And without the stove to cook, whatever you do eat, you eat raw and/or cold. I had sushi for lunch. I probably should stock up on canned goods, etc. but I just threw away a can of artichoke hearts that had been sitting in the larder for more than two years. Black liquid started oozing out of it. What a mess to clean up!

I was more than happy to be without the computer for a day. I spend way too much time sitting at this keyboard with my right arm stretched out to use the mouse. I have had bad tendinitis in the past when computers first came out so now I have an ergonomic keyboard and mouse pad. The neck problems I am having currently are probably due to the same thing. But yesterday I realized how much I use the computer to keep in touch with my friends and family. I couldn't pay the bills, check the stock prices, work on my photos or this blog. My huge genealogy database is on the computer. I consult the computer for astronomy, choosing what I am going to look at. I use it for knitting ideas and solving problems. I could live without it, I did once upon a time, but it definitely would hurt.

So I sat and knit a lot until evening when it became too dark to see. You can't do much of anything by candlelight. I wonder how our ancestors managed. Of course, they went to bed earlier than we do. My neighborhood was very quiet all day. I think the neighbors went out for dinner. I could hear a motor running somewhere, but haven't any idea where the sound was coming from. It was maddening to have to listen to it. The outage brought back memories of when I was 10 or 11 and we had several hurricanes. Power was out for a few days if I remember right and my mother coped.

When the power came back on, the refrigerator went into high gear and ran for almost two hours to catch up. I could hear creaks and pops as one by one all the clocks and other electronic devices returned to life. Devices with back-up batteries now need the batteries replaced and of course all those clocks need to be reset except for the ones that can "call home" automatically.

Note to myself: if this should ever happen again, take all the half frozen ice cubes out of the ice maker before they have a chance to freeze up again in one solid mass!

Computer Angst, Part II

Too much writing, not enough knitting.

I received another prompt reply from Mr. Inamdar. (Thank you, Mr. Inamdar.) He actually had quite a good suggestion this time, one that I intended to try myself, i.e., download the Norton Removal Tool to my second computer and copy it over to this computer to run. How did he know I have a second computer? Does everyone have a second computer these days?

Last night I successfully downloaded the "Tool" to the computer in the den, but I probably won't get to the next step until the weekend.

I not only have a second computer, I have a third computer, and a fourth computer if you count my laptop. My husband left me well endowed. My impossible mission is to keep all these machines running. Both of my children have suggested, logically, that I put all the programs I like to use on one computer and get rid of the rest. My reply to them is that I keep them all just as they are because of situations such as this. Even though all four computers are PCs and run with Windows XP, they each behave quite differently. If I can't get on the Internet on one, I usually can on another (remote wireless problems). Some software will not work on this computer but works fine on the computer in the den. But the computer in the den has been having CD and DVD drive problems. The computer in the front bedroom (formerly my daughter's and soon to be my knitting room) is the old computer and the only computer with SCSI. My favorite scanner is SCSI.

But there is a deeper issue at work here, which you may have guessed. This computer that I am typing at right now was my husband's computer. It has his favorite programs on it, his emails, spreadsheets, databases for his various hobbies, etc., and I am having a hard time parting with his things still. (That's his chair over there in the sidebar which I have only recently begun to sit in to knit.) As he approached retirement, it became obvious that I would need my own computer because we both tended to spend hours at the computer working on our hobbies--for me it was genealogy. So we bought the computer in the den just months before he died. It was my first very own desktop computer. I insisted on setting it up myself so I would know how to take care of it.

Now it does makes sense to consolidate the two, but not just yet...

Too much writing and not enough knitting.

Computer Angst

One of my pet peeves is being called by my first name by someone I do not know or have never met. It used to really rankle me when we first arrived in laid-back Los Angeles to be called, "Ann" by the nurse in the doctor's office as in "Ann, Dr. Jones will see you now." It made the gulf between me, the lowly patient, and the doctor, God himself, seem even wider. Chalk it up to my New England up-bringing where you have to know someone for 20 years before you can call them by their first name. (Does this count as my third revelation?)

Yesterday I thought I would bite the bullet and renew my Norton Anti-virus subscription. How long could it take? Just a few minutes and a few clicks and I'm done and my computer is protected from all those nasty things lurking out there in cyberspace. I started with the simple subscription renewal, but then they gave me an offer to upgrade to SystemWorks 2006. The price was reasonable, so I said OK. Then they offered to add Norton Personal Firewall 2006 to the deal for only $10. Well I have been receiving phishing emails lately and when I went to check out the cookie situation, I discovered there are 1400 of them on my machine! As a low-carber I knew that all these cookies were not good even if they were digital ones. So I agreed to the second offer as well. But that's it, no more. No extended service guarantee, extended download availability, etc. Each of these niceties, which you would think would come with the product for free, cost more.

They took my money and then my troubles began. I couldn't install the software, in fact I am not sure that it even downloaded to my machine. The installation process got stuck half way through. When I tried their suggested remedies, they didn't work either. I was supposed to turn on the Event Log, but Event Log wasn't on the list to be turned on. I was then to try downloading the Norton Removal Tool and all I got was a blank screen. I went to customer support and they offered to let me talk to a person by email for free or by phone for $29.99. I chose the email route.

I received a prompt reply from a Ramdas Inamdar, which I give to you here:

Subject---------------------------------------------------------------Technical SupportDiscussion Thread---------------------------------------------------------------Response (ramdas.inamdar) - 01/21/2007 10:04 PM

Hello Ann,

Thank you for contacting Symantec Online Technical Support.

I understand from your message that you are receiving the following error message when you try to install Norton SystemWorks (NSW) 2006 on your computer:- "(9999,171) The installation encountered an error and is unable to continue."

Ann, please note that this issue can occur due to certain registry keys that does not have the correct permissions.

So, I suggest that you to set permission for the registry keys. Please follow the step by step instructions provided below :

1. Download and run SymNRT.exe Title: 'Using the Norton uninstall tool: Manual file download'Document ID: 2006031710323113> Web URL: http://service1.symantec.com/Support/sharedtech.nsf/docid/2006031710323113?Open&src=con_ols_nam

2. Restart the Computer

3. Make sure that the system is logged in as Administrator,(Goto Start > Run and type "control userpasswords2", If Username is not listed, then add the user login account under Administrator)

4. Take the back-Up of the Registry and Save it under C drive (Don't save it in Desktop)Please see the document linked below for details on making a backup of your registry: Title: 'Backing up the Windows registry'Document ID: 199762382617> Web URL: http://service1.symantec.com/support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/199762382617?Open&src=con_ols_nam

5. Click Start, and then click Run. The Run dialog box appears.

6. Type regedit and then click OK. The Registry Editor opens.

7. Right Click on HKEY_Classes_Root, Click on Permission

8. If "Administrator, Current user login & System" is listed and all the 3 have Full Control permission Under Group & username, then Goto Step 8

9. If "Administrator, current user login & System" is not listed, then add them in the Group/user names box. Also make sure that all the 3 (Administrator/User login name/System) have Full Control permission.

10. Click on the "Advanced" button and click on the "Owner tab.

11. In the Owner Tab, under "Current user of this item" user login name should be displayed, if it isn't then select the User login name (in the same window) and click on apply.

12. Check mark "Replace Owner on Subcontainers and objects" and clicl Apply.(Note: In case while applying the above steps if its shows a message "Registry Editor could not set owner on the key currently selected, or some of its subkeys. ' just Click Ok and proceed further)

13. In the "Advanced security settings for HKCR "window, Check mark "Replace permission entries on all child objetcs with entries shown that apply to child objetcs"(Make sure the "Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects .." is unchecked)

14. Click Apply and Ok(Note: In case while applying the above steps if it is shows a message "Registry Editor could not set owner on the key currently selected, or some of its subkeys. ' just Click Ok and proceed further)

15. Repeat the Steps 5 to 12, for "HKEY_CURRENT_USER""HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE"

16. Restart the Computer

17. Try to install Norton Personal Firewall 2006 and Norton SystemWorks (NSW) 2006 and check for the issue.- Install Norton Personal Firewall 2006.For more information regarding this issue, you can refer the document link mentioned below: Title: 'Installing Norton Personal Firewall 2006 that was downloaded from the Symantec Store' Document ID: 2005081215222136 > Web URL: http://service1.symantec.com/Support/nip.nsf/docid/2005081215222136?Open&src=con_ols_nam - If you are installing Norton Personal Firewall 2006 using the installation CD, please refer the document link provided below:Title: 'Installing Norton Personal Firewall 2006 from the CD' Document ID: 2005081215192436 > Web URL: http://service1.symantec.com/Support/nip.nsf/docid/2005081215192436?Open&src=con_ols_nam

Next, I suggest that you try to install Norton SystemWorks (NSW) 2006 and check for the issue.For more information regarding this issue, you can refer the document link mentioned below: Title: 'Installing Norton SystemWorks 2006' Document ID: 2005110207284107 > Web URL: http://service1.symantec.com/support/nsw.nsf/docid/2005110207284107?Open&src=con_ols_nam

Please let me know, if the issue has been resolved.

Regards, Ramdas.C.InamdarSymantec Authorized Technical SupportDisclaimer

Note: This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of the individual to which it is addressed.If you are not the intended recipient, please do not follow any instructions provided within this message. Any instructions or offers contained within this message are for a specific person, system configuration, location, and situation. Following these instructions may adversely affect your system if you are not the intended recipient.If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by telephone and (i) destroy this message if a facsimile or (ii) delete this message immediately if this is an electronic communication.You are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. Thank you.Auto-Response - 01/21/2007 08:13 PM

Hello Ann V,

We have received your request for assistance and a Symantec Authorized Online Customer Service agent will contact you by e-mail within 48 hours to help answer your questions. The subject line of our agent's email will contain the following information:Problem Type:Request reference number:

This information is used for tracking purposes. If you need to send additional information to the agent related to your request please do so however please do not change the subject line of the message.Please feel free to browse Symantec's rich source of self-help information, which may be accessed through the Website linked below:http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/support_options.htmlThank you for contacting the Symantec Authorized Customer Service Center and choosing Online Support.Regards,Technical Support SpecialistSymantec Authorized Online Customer Service[---001:005312:64413---]

I was put off right away by being called by my first name, but what really bothered me was that I had already tried Step 1 and it didn't work and I had said so in my message to Norton. I have replied to Mr. Inamdar the following:

Hello Ramdas,

Thank you for your prompt reply. However, I am unable to execute Step 1. When I click on Download on the page

http://service1.symantec.com/Support/sharedtech.nsf/docid/2006031710323113?Open&src=con_ols_nam

I get a blank screen for 5 minutes and then the message:

The page you are looking for is currently unavailable.

Please advise,
Ann

Stay tuned...