The roofing job is almost done....

Just in time too, because it looks like our nice weather is changing to something else.....
 
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Our nice weather continues....

Would you believe, this is the roof of the underground parking garage?

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We're having a heatwave.....

The above is from CBC News, showing ten indicators which together confirm global temperatures are rising, and have been increasing year over year for decades.

TV and movies and even official space programs have got some of us thinking that it's only a matter of time before mankind will walk on and perhaps conquer other planets around other stars like our own. In spite of all that entertaining chatter about 'warp speed' and 'hyperdrive' and all that fantasy, the truth is that we're stuck here, like it or not, simply because the distances to other places are too vast, and our technology isn't able to repeal the laws of science with nothing more than wishful thinking. So where am I going with all this? Just to say that instead of dreaming about some mythical 'Star Trek' technology saving our butts from our own stupidity, perhaps we should seriously consider the other possibilities, just in case.

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Looking towards downtown...

This is looking across our bridge over the Capilano River, towards downtown. This bridge is really our front driveway, and our way in and out of here.

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Today in the gardens....

The hydrangeas are looking lovely this year.

The hollyhocks are coming along nicely too.....

But these roses are my favourites, for sure. They are wonderful.

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The roofing continues....

This seems to be taking longer than other similar jobs I've seen around here, but that's likely because they are doing a pattern to it, instead of just banging them on in rows as usual.

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Operating System Market Share....

If you'd like to see a pie chart for the various operating systems, please click here.

A recent news story said that there have now been about 175 million licenses sold for the Windows 7 operating system, making it the fastest selling one yet. That's probably because there were about ten million of us helping to test it during its beta phase, and we all had a chance to submit feedback and ideas for it, and by the time it was released, it was as solid as a rock, and a huge improvement on the previous Vista system. I've been using Windows 7 now ever since that first beta came out in January of 2009, and it's great. If you haven't tried it, you should.

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From the gardens

I've added this to my desktop backgrounds. If you'd like to, please do.

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Maybe a nice day - but not yet....

This is a typical situation here. The clouds pile up against the mountains, which act like a big fence, and then it takes a long time for them to clear off. Sometimes, they don't quite make it. However, over on Vancouver Island to the west, it is a nice sunny day.

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Thank you, Viewers!

Thank you to all of you who have  helped to get the counter past the 25,000 views mark.

 When I started all this away back when, I never expected it might do as well as it has, so my thanks to each of you for your support. If you can suggest a topic we could explore, please leave a comment below. Just click on the word 'Comments' to bring up that page.

Enjoy your day, everyone!


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Another race with the weatherman....

Another new roof in progress up in the next block. The hammering sounds a lot closer than this picture might suggest.

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For all us freebies fans.....

Here's a screen shot of EMCO's new and free anti-virus program, which uses a new scanner technology to do the whole scan in a minute or less. You do, however, need to manually update its database for the latest definitions.

Who are these EMCO folks? They are from Iceland, and they make several different programs, mostly aimed at network administrators and such - but they also make some great freeware, such as 'MoveOnBoot' which will remove those unwanted bits which otherwise show you a pop-up reading "access denied".... Just drag them into the window of 'MoveOnBoot', select 'delete', then reboot your computer, and away they go! EMCO does good work. 

You can find this by clicking here.

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Another freebie discovery.....

This is Free Registry Defrag, version 3.00, and you can find it here.

This little program will compact and defragment just your registry, and before it does that, it will scan it, and tell you how much space you can save doing it. As it says in its notes, the registry is being written to and deleted from all the time you are adding or removing things from your computer, so over time it will develop blanks and other problems which will slow down performance. This can help solve that for you. This is their latest version, and it works on Windows 7.

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PC performance and cleaning....

In the previous post's comments, Tommy was asking about performance of his browser. That got me thinking about ways of improving the performance  in general, and there are a couple of useful 'freebies' which will help you do that:-

Glary Utilities  and Wise Registry Cleaner Free


Scroll down their main page until you get to the 'free version' downloads.  Both of these work quite well, and will remove entries that are no longer needed or useful in the system. The Glary program is a very simple one to use, and it works quickly.


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Question Everything: Internet Explorer pop-ups

Do you find that when you're starting to do something with I.E. 8 that it puts up annoying little pop-ups telling you that this or that feature is outside the protected zone and do you really want to allow it to connect to the web?

I got one too many of those today, so I went into Control Panel, to Programs and Features, and in the left margin, clicked on "Turn Windows features on or off" and then turned off Internet Explorer. After that, Windows does its thing to re- configure the system, and then you have to do a reboot. 

What started all that was that I was trying to download Google's 'Chrome' browser, and the download seemed to be getting blocked by something in Windows. Knowing how Microsoft loves to be the only duck in the pond, I figured maybe that was the problem, and as soon as I turned off I.E.8, that download for Google's Chrome browser came in properly. So now, my two browsers of choice are Firefox and Chrome. I.E.8 is back in its box out of the way. 

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Tonight's moon setting....

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Today's Trivia: How does your income compare to others?

If you are curious to see where your income puts you, compared to everybody else on earth, then there's a calculator for that. Don't ask me how accurate it is, because I can't say.  You can find it by clicking here.


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Cameras and zooms compared - today's sunrise

This was taken on a Canon G9 at 6X optical zoom.

This was taken on a Pentax X70 at 24X optical zoom.

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Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Beta released - sort of....

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the release of an SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 which you can read about on the Windows Blog.

I urge you to note that this SP1 doesn't contain anything new for those of us who have our Windows 7 set for automatic updates, and have received all of those. This is mostly an update which improves performance for business users of Windows Servers, in order to make it easier for them to change over to Windows 7 and distribute it over their own networks. As we are told in the blog about it, this is NOT recommended for home users at this time, because there's nothing in it that can especially benefit a home user who isn't on a corporate network.

As I understand it, this SP1 release is aimed at encouraging business customers to change over from a previous Windows O/S to this latest Windows 7 version, by making the process more convenient for them. For those of us who have been using Windows 7 ever since its first Beta release back in January of 2009, this is simply 'preaching to the converted', and we don't need it, because our copies of Windows 7 are fully updated from Windows Updates already. We are therefore advised to wait until the final release comes out and is distributed in the usual way.

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Handy to have....

In addition to its main function as an anti-malware program monitoring behavioral characteristics of programs, this also has a rootkit scanning function which has two phases. The first checks the filing system, and the second checks the registry. It's reasonably quick, and provides a little more peace of mind to those of us who tend to worry about what's going on in there.

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From the gardens

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Blooming today...

Out front today....

And this, beside the driveway. I have no idea what it's name is.

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Zooming in on the scenery

The Grouse Mountain cable cars near mid-mountain.

This is a close-up of a nearby peak, and it's a little fuzzy, because there's a lot of digital zoom in this one.


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What heatwave?

With all the talk about how most of the country is having a heatwave, I had a look at the old thermometer on the balcony, and after sunset tonight, it was still reading 80 F. This isn't exactly a heatwave, but it's about the warmest it has been yet this summer.  So far this year, around here, we've been grumbling about the cool and wet weather - not the heat. Out here on the coast, it very seldom gets into 'heatwave' territory, and when it does, it's a nice change from the usual.


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Nice day for flying....

This is how some guys come down from Grouse Mountain on a day like today.


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Tire pressure warning....

This is one of the new symbols found on the instrument panel of many newer model vehicles, to warn of a tire that needs more air (or perhaps is overinflated). I found out over the weekend that the system works, too. The light came on last week, and a trip to the dealer's seemed to solve the problem - a soft tire. But the light came back on Saturday, and today the cause was found to be a nail in one of the rear tires. An hour or so and $48.87 later, the light went out, after the tire was repaired.


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Special visitor for Canada Day

Just passing through.....


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