NEVER JET HOT

Been putting "Box Lots" up over at our reseller's site, NoveltyTradingPost.com - Wanted to put some lots up on Ebay but they don't want to play nice with the auction posting system I use. Every time we decide to come back, we are reminded why we went away...

It was news to me; I just discovered a cool feature of Windows Vista; Hold down the windows key and tap the tab key repeatedly, to scroll through your open windows like a deck of cards, release when the one you want is on top. Neat!

I was going through my old "computer emergency" suitcase and found the manual to my old monitor... I paid (lots of) money and happily lugged this thing home. Back in my day, monitors were huge and ugly. And we liked it that way.

I was having problems opening individual emails in gmail, but I found help quickly here; How to Fix GMail Login Problems from Digital Inspiration For me it was as simple as using a different URL; https://mail.google.com/mail Thanks, Digital Inspiration!

I got the new 2009 version of Quicken, I don't know where I got the idea that they would have made it more svelte, and it wouldn't have that annoying habit of reserving a big rectangle for the quicken logo in the middle of the screen, preventing me from doing other computer stuff while waiting (and waiting) for it to load. I mean, they could have made it a thing on the side instead, at the very least. Tried to sell the wife on a poor man's multi-monitor setup, which involves getting an old laptop do do the easy stuff on the same desk, but unfortunately she thought of an even cheaper version of that idea, which involves playing solitaire on the computer desk with a real deck of cards. Oh well, at least I get to cheat that way.

We are constantly bombarded with emails from Chinese manufacturers, touting all kinds of strange products, I kind of think these are small operations trying to emulate the success of others, but not there just yet. Although I am sort of intrigued by this "eye massager" Hooks into your USB port, then what? I don't want to end up on the church lawn clawing my eyes out. They need to provide more details. Can I wear it in the bathtub?

I recently discovered that (at least in Windows XP) There is an "On screen keyboard" option. If your keyboard acts up sometimes (I had one of light-up keyboards that turned out to be krap) - Try this; Start menu->Select Run->Type OSK->Press OK You will get a virtual keyboard , you can use your mouse to type on it. Makes me wonder what other treasures are hidden in that beige box by my knee.

My sister is selling a computer and wants to know what you would use to *permanently* delete data on the hard drive, without reformatting. I have never tried to do that. By the time everyone in the house has had a go at a computer, the thing is ready for the scrap heap. The last one actually made smoke when it fried out. I have several old hard drives in the garage, want to find some tinted resin stuff to pour in the top, put rubber feet on the bottom, those high-tech coasters make excellent Christmas gifts. Perhaps we could make floppy disk cookies too. Nobody steal my idea now.

I was looking for a "Second Icon Row" add-on for my Firefox browser, but this guy had a better way... just delete the text part of existing icons, it saves tons of room... But some items on my toolbar have "blank page" icons so now I need to find out how to have a library of substitute icons to use for those. For instance, I have a quick link there to a B&B the wife and I are going to next week, I could put a tiny cottage icon there. My apologies for losing track of who originally said this; I think it was from one of those "Lifehacks" pages. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bookmark the site on the bookmarks toolbar >Right click the link >Scroll down to Properties >Delete all text from the name:field After which all that remains is the site's very own icon that by default doubles the available real estate on your BM Toolbar space without placing extra burden on your available RAM or having to deal with th...

We were having a problem where Ebay multiple-item orders were being charged $4.99 per item for shipping, instead of $4.99 for the whole shipment. Of course this involves me having to come up with a workaround, all the while bowing and scraping like the chastised waiter on Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It annoys the customer and makes us look like we either don't know what we are doing, or worse yet it makes us look like we are pulling a fast one. Anyway, turns out the problem was as simple as unchecking a box on one of the shipping settings screens at my web store provider's site. That thing is truly cumbersome and puzzling to me, it's a Rube Goldberg contraption, and I always hesitate to monkey with it. I think that's how they like it. Again I apologize to those who were temporarily thwarted in their purchasing efforts.

Checking out this Flock browser, supposed to make blogging, posting to flickr, etc. a lot easier- Looks like it does that, and I like the intro screen that presents your recent sites, etc. without any tweaking first. It made me a bit leery at first, took a long time to install (by modern standards) and seemed to be doing a lot of fiddling with my computer's internal dials and switches. Does seem to run faster than Firefox though. More on this later. PHOTO: Teresa at the Everett "Sausage Festival" in 05. I thoughtfully included porta-potty row in this picture. Blogged with Flock

One of our ecommerce vendors had this to say; At approximately 2:30am PST we experienced a failure in the core SAN (Storage Area Network) of both the secondary controller, and a single disk in the primary mirrored set. The problem appears to be with the backplane of the SAN controller, not necessarily with the secondary controller per se, but the primary controller is unable to speak with it. Translation; someone spilled Diet Coke into the computer rack. Or, it's the catastrophic converter, knowwhatimean?

I just got an email from a "Paul Smith" regarding "The Late Dr. Everett's estate" - It instructs to open a PDF attachment. I'm sure everyone here knows not to open an email attachment even from someone they know, unless they had previously arranged and know for sure what's inside. Virus spreaders are always coming up with new technological and psychological tricks. I am ashamed to admit that I almost opened that one, but if I inherited something I'm sure that I would be notified by US certified mail as is the accepted procedure. Besides, with my luck I would have to spent the night in a decrepit haunted mansion as a precondition.

A woman switches on a tiny wireless chip that has been surgically implanted behind her ear, which then synchs up with the Web wherever she is in the world. The simple thought of logging on to the Internet triggers the system to turn on and connect to the Web. She could be on a bus or at the beach and from all outward appearances she's just staring off into space. But she sees a three dimensional artificial world before her that she can manipulate any way she chooses by mere thought alone. YABUT... What's to stop her from using it while she drives a car? (Assuming we get to have cars in the future) - Another worry, what if they let GUYS use this technology? I'm not letting my daughter ride the bus with guys who have mental images of SEX in their heads all day. Oh crud- OK I'm not letting my daughter ride the bus. What's to stop corporate spammers from using this connection to make you salivate every time you see their product? And there surely would be a multi-tiered...