Happy Valentine's Day

Just finished attempting to repair iTunes after it managed to freeze up my computer for the second time in an hour.  While I was at it rolled Internet Explorer back to version 6 for the second time.  I should know better!  I've come to expect system resource hogging, bloated programmes from Microsoft but with version 7 of iTunes, Apple has conjured up a rotten fruit.  Surely they don't think one uses a $ 3,000 computer solely to run their software.  I like to write letters, read E-mail, browse, and edit picture files with musical accompaniment but for reasons I don't understand when iTunes cycles from one file to another it tends to freeze up my computer for up to a minute at a time.  This morning it froze up completely.  Recently my Windows Explorer has been crashing as well.  Expect I need to get more memory but not sure if I want to add to the present configuration or look at replacing it outright. 

 

I'm in "hanging on by my fingernails" mode for the next week pending my upcoming vacation.  I've planned a visit to my sister in Halifax to get away from it all and scheduled a visit to my land surveyor as a side trip.  On Tuesday this week some harsh reality intruded upon my hopes of a stress-free visit.  Apparently in anticipation of my visit my surveyor had some "on the ground" work to complete and stirred up a hornet's nest when they ran into the fact that one of my "neighbours" has taken liberties with my property in constructing a "camp" on it.  Not the kind of situation I wanted to have to confront during a vacation but apparently one of the joys of being an absentee land-owner. 

 

Tuesday evening attended my bi-monthly Community Policing Consultation Committee Meeting.  As expected I retained the position of Secretary unopposed—in fact the meeting was sparsely attended probably by those unwilling to hold office.  I have minutes I've been putting off writing but must get to.  Of note is the number of cars people have left running to warm up with the doors unlocked—an alarming number have departed without their drivers.  Also the number of calls for service received by Halton Police Service in the first 5 weeks of 2007—8700—one every five minutes 24 hours a day. 

 

Also on Tuesday I picked up a copy of Flags of Our Fathers and after watching it twice have written a review on my sister blog.  "War, what is it good for?  Absolutely Nothing!"  Well it may be good for munitions manufacturers.  And, given the expense of decommissioning aging stockpiles using weapons is probably cheaper than rendering them safe.  Which begs the question as to what we do with obsolete nuclear warheads? 

 

Wednesday after work I had my hearing tested.  Nothing particularly wrong but as expected years of sinus trouble and the drugs used to treat it have taken their toll.  Whether I actually need to be tested again so soon, or what good it will do in any case the technician liked my business well enough to want to do it again in one year's time.  Her solution to tinnitus—ringing in the ears—is to listen to music.  Guess it's akin to the solution to engine noise in a car. 

 

Not much else to report.  I've been exercising my culinary skills at work at the behest of our superintendent making mulled cider to warm the troops after they return from delivering mail in sub zero temperatures.  Brought the coffee pot home to clean it out this weekend.  At least for once I actually got several compliments on my efforts. 

 

A Happy Valentines to everyone.

 

 

Ground Hog Blues

For the record, this groundhog saw his shadow yesterday and would love to crawl into his "Hobbit Hole" until spring. Get a load of this weather forecast:

Issued: 5.00 AM EST Saturday 3 February 2007 Today: Sunny with cloudy periods. Becoming cloudy this afternoon with a few flurries. Amount 2 cm. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50. High minus 10. Wind chill minus 26 this morning. Tonight: A few flurries ending this evening then cloudy periods. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50. Low minus 18. Wind chill minus 29. Sunday: Sunny with cloudy periods. Becoming cloudy in the afternoon with 40 percent chance of flurries late in the day. Local blowing snow in the afternoon. Wind west 30 km/h increasing to 50 gusting to 70 early in the afternoon. High minus 14. Wind chill minus 30. Monday: Cloudy with 70 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 17. High minus 10. Tuesday: Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 17. High minus 11. Wednesday: Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 14. High minus 10.

Needless to say the Arctic Jet Stream still has Southern Ontario in focus.

On a positive note tomorrow morning I will have no excuse not to defrost my deep freeze at last. The balmy weather we "enjoyed" through the Christmas and New Year Period prevented my doing this chore at that time.

For all the problems my own Condominium Apartment Building has had in the last week two buildings in Oakville suffered worse. The rental building to our north suffered a break in the weld at the top of its fire-fighting standpipe resulting in a flood augmented by the high-pressure fire-pump in the basement. I feel for the poor wretches who had their earthly possessions soaked by that deluge—insurance, however good hardly covers the loss. A sister Condo suffered a fire in an electrical panel resulting in a fire-call that shut down traffic in the area. I consider myself fortunate that I wasn't caught up in that one as I drive by that building on my way to and from work every day.

My E-mail "In-Box" is empty this morning. No one I correspond with has written me in over a week. Guess everyone is busy shoveling snow and sanding ice? I can't boast that I've accomplished that much more myself. I've already written about my miss-adventure with Office 2007 so I won't bore you further. I continue to attempt to keep up with the items I download to iTunes, but it is fun. I have also listened to the latest from Harry Connick Jr. and managed to catch up on my electronic magazines. My reading has suffered though I'm still making progress reading Can Lit Poets. Dipped into The Waltons though this romanticized version of life in the Blue Ridge at the height of the depression occasionally gets a might saccharin—see review in my sister blog. For a complete change of pace I've switched to a copy of Little Boy Blue which I managed to locate. The West Family personifies the concept of dysfunctional family but let's be honest; the main draw here is the opportunity to watch the camera pan lovingly over Ryan Phillippe's virile young naked body.

I continue to plug away at preparations for my upcoming vacation. I've been working on adapting shopping list software to my needs. If I keep it up I'll soon have my entire life recorded on a Hard Drive:

http://www.homeplansoftware.com/shoplist.htm

The software is freeware and recommended.

It has just occurred to me that it's now February and I haven't changed my calendars as yet. Luckily the computer automatically updates itself. Windows XP even does a decent job of keeping track of time as well. Guess I'll finish up for the moment and go attend to those calendars.

Kvetching About Microsoft Again

Yiddish is so expressive, No? 

 

Decided it might be interesting to try out a newer version of Word and decided to give Office 2007—released Tuesday January 30^th—a try.  The Home and Student Version is affordable and contains Power Point and Excel as well as the much-vaunted new One Note about which I was curious.  After considerable research I discovered that Microsoft is offering it in a downloadable trial version.   I suppose I should be thankful for Sympatico's unlimited bandwidth policy—the download is 300 MB—and the speed of my connection—I successfully got it in less than 30 minutes at 8:00 PM in the evening. 

 

I must say that the install went cleanly and without incident though once again I must comment about the incredulity felt by a customer who must immediately download and install updates for software that has just been released.  Why didn't they do it right in the first place?  The trial period is gracious being 60 days and was offered pre-release in stores.  Attempted to add some templates to One Note and discovered that some of them didn't seem to arrive. 

 

Things started going wrong when I decided to try out Word 2007.  In the first place documents created in this new version are not backward compatible—unless you install a 27 MB converter pack.  When I clicked on the shortcut to open the programme the cobwebs started growing as I waited for it to load—Microsoft gives you no option to disable the splash screen as any programme of theirs opens.  The first thing that hit me when it did open was the fact that the Graphical User Interface occupies the top half of one's screen.  In a continuing campaign to dumb down its programming Microsoft has abandoned smartcoms in favour of showing the user all the options visually.  If this is any indication of what Vista is going to be like I'll be avoiding it like the plague—at least XP gave one the option of using a "classic" desktop.  The final nail in the coffin came when I clicked on the "Send To" Menu—E-mail options were all grayed out.  Obviously this Word does not recognize Outlook Express, (at least in Windows XP), and Outlook doesn't come with this version of Office.  Since writing E-mail is 95% of my purpose in using Word its fate was now sealed. 

 

After the requisite shut down of running programmes I went through the uninstall process and rebooted.  Word 2002 then needed some repairing and the settings had to be restored—luckily I used the utility to back them up earlier.  Satisfied that everything was now working properly I went back into Windows Settings and disabled Restore—I don't trust it normally, finding it uses too much space and doesn't do as much as claimed; then I deleted the download.

 

In summary, One Note may be a useful programme but Ever Note Lite does all the same things and for free!  I've never used Power Point so I don't know what I'm missing and I'm swimming in spread sheet programmes so I don't actually need Excel.  Guess I'll be sticking with Works Suite.  I like to update Streets and Trips every now and then along with Encarta but may wait another year for that.  Buying the entire Suite is cheaper than getting individual updates.  So there you have it.  I suppose I should be thankful that the free trial enabled me to make these discoveries at no cost beyond my time.