Today's weather is.....

And it's getting better as it gets older. Wish I was :) This is looking at Vancouver Island.

Another freebie - but it didn't work for me....

The problem I had with this is that it asks some rather ambiguous or confusing questions at the beginning, to get itself configured to look at your present setup of Services. Then, when it collects that information and does an automatic adjustment, it turns off some things that I did not want interrupted, like my Internet connection, for starters... Fortunately, Vista can do its own repair on the Local Area Connection, and that came back on alright. But it also shut off some security because it thought I didn't want the factory-equipment Windows security items running alongside my third-party ones. So that had to be re-started, too. By the time I got all that done, I'd decided that I didn't need this aggravation - it's really simpler to just go into Administrative Tools -> Services and select individual ones, and then click on Properties of that, and check for its dependencies, and decide whether you need it in Manual, or Automatic, or Disabled - and then move on to the next. There's a whole bunch of them, and it will take some time to go through the whole list, but when you're done, you'll have your Vista (or Windows 7 or XP) tuned to exactly the ways you want it, according to the features that you're using and not using. And you won't have to reset your Internet connection afterward, unless you've cut off something you shouldn't have stopped. And you'll find that out soon enough - trust me. Have I ever lied to you ?

64-bit Windows and security programs....

This is something I found on using Avast Home on a Windows 64-bit operating system, and I'm including it here, because it helps to explain some of the differences between a 32-bit (x86) operating system and a 64-bit (x64) operating system. Luckily, the same security program that I'm presently using on my Windows 7 (32-bit) PC is also fully compatible with this Vista 64-bit that I got most recently. I like Avast security software, not just because they make a freebie version, but most of all because it really works - unlike some other brands I could name.

There's a lot of different brands, and a lot of pure unadulterated bullshit in the security game, and you definitely can't believe everything you read. The 'Good Guys' cover your ass as well as their own, while the others only cover their own asses, while treating you to the well-known old Mushroom Philosophy: Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em horseshit.

Those huge rocks at the new house....

The backhoe operator finally came today to run the machine and remove those huge rocks from the middle of the driveway, and place them against the uphill side of it, and covered over the crushed rock that was on the driveway.

Today's Question Everything is:- How many of you think this improves the look of this place, as opposed to how many of you think it makes it look like hell? I'm among the latter, myself. This reminds me of the wit who said "There are very few problems in this life which cannot be resolved by the judicious application of high explosives."

Togetherness - The Bucket Brigade...

From here, I couldn't really see what they were doing for all these trees in between - and there's lots of them. It's a jungle out there.

Isn't this a stat holiday ?

When I was a member of the IBEW, we tried not to work on these statutory holidays, and we usually didn't engage in "make-work" projects to make the time sheets look better - we didn't need to. How times change! Christine couldn't figure out what this guy was up to, when he first pulled into her driveway and started setting up. Kind of puzzled me too.

Right on schedule....the weekend's almost over.

It's clearing up again, now that the long weekend is almost history. Mother Nature is a bitch!

Same old, same old... ho-hum...

The summer's last long weekend goes out with a whimper and a fizzle....and the rains come.

More about your computer.... an 'FYI'

Monsieur Beep writes that he consults his weather channel (in Germany) several times a day - so here's perhaps something helpful, Monsieur.... In Vista (and Windows 7) you can load more than one copy of a gadget onto the desktop. Please see the examples of the weather gadget from Vista's standard default set of gadgets, shown on the right, above. So grab the good wife's new laptop and add a couple of more weather gadgets to its Vista Sidebar :)

The long-range forecast -

Got a wet-suit? You could always go surfing, or scuba-diving....

Or maybe just stay inside where it's warm & dry, and the coffee's handy, and the computer's working without talking back at you for a change.... and if that doesn't grab you, there's always the mall. We've got the oldest still-operating mall in Canada just a couple of blocks from here, and it's a biggie, too. Maybe mall-ratting is your thing....

Windows 7 Launch Party on houseparty.com

I got an email today from Microsoft, inviting me to try for a chance to host a launch party for Windows 7 sometime between October 22 and 29, and maybe receive a free signature edition of Windows 7 Ultimate and goodies for the guests. Sounds lovely, and I really like Windows 7 Ultimate, which I've been testing now for most of this year. But I did a little research on this houseparty.com organization and learned that my chances are slim to none of being picked to host a party for Microsoft's Windows 7 launch. There will be events all over the country, and around the world, very likely, but getting chosen to host one is a lot like winning the 'big one' on the lottery - you probably stand a better chance of being hit by lightning, or suddenly becoming 20 years younger and twice as nice looking. Not something to get too excited over.

But that's OK - about ten million of us have been testing Windows 7 already for months, and most of us have been very favourably impressed by it. Most of us have probably already said so, to anyone who would listen. I know I have. I think Windows 7 is the best Windows yet, and I believe anyone who gives it a fair trial and especially anyone who has compared it side by side with Vista will definitely prefer Windows 7. It's the kind of program that will practically sell itself, if given a chance to show what it can do. It's classier and prettier than XP, but just as versatile, and much more user-friendly than Vista, so it has all the makings of a real winner in my humble opinion. Add to that the fact that from practically Day One it has been a very solid and dependable platform, and you've got something you can trust. Behind it you have people who have learned their lesson about paying attention to their users and trying to keep us satisfied with the product, and that makes a big difference for everyone. So I really don't need to hold a launch party for this newest operating system - I was sold on it months ago, and already have a copy pre-ordered.

Today in our local newspaper.... election fever?

Above is my response to Barbara's always-excellent perspectives on the national political scene, and her closing thoughts on a fall election. Here's Barbara's column that prompted my email to her. Enjoy!

And this being the Canadian Labour Day long weekend, here's a quote from the famous Will Rogers on that topic:- "Tomorrow is Labor Day, I suppose set by act of Congress. How Congress knows anything about labor is beyond me."

Enjoy your day, everyone.

Vista with smaller shortcut arrows.....

....and a more Windows-7-like taskbar, with larger icons for us golden oldies with dirty glasses and a burning desire to squint less often. - (works for me!)

Ah, Das Wet Coast, jawohl !

The Weather Channel - in Germany! Thanks to Monsieur Beep for providing the link for us.

The Windows 7 Look - for Vista or XP

And here's where you can find the several changes you can make to get that Windows 7 look. It had to happen, right? I now have the Windows 7 taskbar features in my Vista Home Premium.
But there's still no substitute for the real thing, Folks, and a falsie is a falsie.

And here is where to find the x64 version of the little program for changing/removing those (ugh!) arrows in Vista's shortcuts. The 32-bit version doesn't work on a 64-bit system, as I have discovered, but this one does. If you get an error message about an unhandled exception when it asks you to click on yes or no for log-off and log-on, just quietly close that little window and reboot. When it restarts, all should be well, and your changes should be made.

A handy gadget for the sidebar...

Check out this one if you'd rather have some quick help instead of growing older reading through an assortment of KBs in the Knowledge Base. You can always do the reading later, if you didn't find what you wanted in Mr. Fix it..... and I've just taken a little break here to go onto my Windows 7 PC, and download and install this little gadget on there too, and you'll be happy to know it works just fine in Windows 7, Folks. Great idea, really! You should get one.

Still at it..... just further up the hill

The Shingle-Shovellers are still shovelling shingles and banging on rooftops. It's a living...

First sunset of September

The "before and after" views... And the weatherman's thunderstorm never did show up.
I'm always amazed when they goof up on that, because with today's technology, and all those aircraft and satellites flying around, and so many people with 20/20 vision - how the hell can they not see what's happening?

Why our new PCs are bigger than our old ones...

I think most of us already know the answers to that, but for those who don't, or haven't thought much about it, you should get this freebie program shown above. It has all sorts of additional features, however, and many of them also involve downloading yet another program to be included in the main one.

But getting back to answering my own question, one reason we need so much more RAM and such larger hard-drives is to accommodate the latest trend towards making these new computers practically 'idiot-proof'. They do that by building in a recovery system which is hidden away in a special section of the drive, or in another partition of the drive, and that recovery system contains a duplicate copy of (A) itself; and (B) the computer's operating system which has been installed, and which you may need to replace if you've messed it up sufficiently to require such a drastic remedy.

This, in the case of Acer machines, usually means the hard-drive is partitioned into two separate partitions; the first (C:\ drive) having the boot sectors and operating system and your own files & folders, and the second partition, ( usually named Data, with another letter to identify it) which contains all this 'secret' or hidden recovery stuff. If and when you have to use that recovery, what happens is that it wipes out whatever was on that first or (C:\) drive section, and basically reformats that into a clean drive, and then it replaces everything from the other recovery section back onto the main (C:\) drive again. Your computer is now back to its factory condition, with its recovery and operating system just as it was when it left the factory - but minus all your own personal files and folders. You have to replace all those yourself, because the system doesn't save them for you. (That's to teach guys like me not to screw up the registry or anything else badly enough to need to re-install everything and lose hours (or days!) getting everything back that had been on there beforehand.)

All of which requires a system that's basically at least twice as big and powerful as those older ones which weren't capable of duplicating themselves to save you from yourself after you have really messed up big-time, and need serious help to get things back to normal. So today's computers need to have a lot more under the hood, because they have secrets that they aren't showing you until your computer needs resuscitation and a transfusion to revive it. And the good news is, it can do it by itself, if you know how to start that process. So make sure you know before you need to use it.

What thunderstorm ? It's going to be nice....

This was snapped just before six a.m., because the TV morning news crew were going on about possible thunderstorms today, and someone having seen lightning over our north shore mountains. So this is our north shore mountains (most of them) at just about that same time.
The news today is also talking about the smoke from our several many forest fires, and you saw some of that here already, too. Must be a 'slow news day' at the TV station.