My Sorta Techy Life, What I Do

Thomas MacEntee, of GeneaBlogger and Destination: Austin Family (and other web sites) has suggested we all participate in this new meme, to list what tools you use for either your profession or your hobby.

For Reflections the key words are portable, small, lightweight, and portable (oh, said that! LOL)

Above:  My kitchen office in the stick.  Temporarily set up in April because of a sick dog (close to the outside door, if you get my drift) and I am still here!

* Hardware: HP Pavilion tx2000 tablet laptop. The lid swivels and closes and the screen is a touch screen. This allows me to close the computer, use the touch screen and travel in Big Butt (our tow vehicle) or any car for that matter, and the screen is not bouncing around (not a good thing on the hinges of one’s lap top computers, ask me how I know). I have an air card and can surf while Man drives, I use Google Earth and email and can browse the web all while running down the road. I have even done a blog post while he was driving. With Microsoft Streets and Trips and a GPS doodad, I can re-route us, and know where we are at all times. Very handy.

I am running Windows Vista, with a AMD processor (Turiron(tm) X2 Ultra Dual Core Mobile ZM-80 2.10 Ghz – and I have NO idea what all that stuff means). 250 gig hard drive. 3 gig of memory. This is a physically small computer and suits my life style. During use in the home or Tana (our 5th wheel) I do hook it up to an external monitor (19 inch) and sometimes an external keyboard.

* External storage: MyBook by Western Digigal, external hard drive, 1 terabyte. Have several full system backups there, as well as periodical data file backups. Will use flash drives on occasion. i-Pod touch also has some of my files, over 7,000 multi media files attached to my data base are backed up there, as well as my data base, via Gedview.

* Online storage: Hotmail account has GEDCOM files there, not used consistently.

* Backup: I use Windows Explore for data file transfer to the My Book and Man uses some Norton’s program for the image file (the entire full system) backups.

* Printers/Scanners: For travel, the Canon i70. Small, compact, prints color, prints photos if you want, prints legal size. In the main office of the house I have a Canon MP 500, which is also a scanner. For travel I also have a Canon LiDE 30 scanner, another small, lightweight product, which goes with me to libraries.  Slide scanner: Plustex Optic Film 7200.

* Phone: 3 year old Sprint flip phone, no text, just calls thank you mam. No home phone, we are un-tethered, Skype for computer, but not used for phone, only for video with the grandkids while we are traveling.

* Internet connection: adding this item, as I mentioned we have an air card and use a router. We actually have 2 routers, a MBR1200, which has been troublesome. Also have a TopGlobal. I don’t know the numbers for the air card or TopGlobal. Air card provided by Sprint. It works at our stick built, as Sprint covers us. Verizon does not. AT&T, have no idea if they cover or not. When you want to be totally mobile, and untethered, you go with what works for you most of the time. For us, for the last 3 years it has been Sprint, family plan, 5 members, saved mega $$ each month. Mobile and economical, great combo. Happy customers.

* E-mail: Gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail and AOL mail accounts. Too many to count, each has specific uses, compartments of my life. Research separate from Rving, etc. All accounts are web based, no more ISP based email accounts, those addy’s change too much and I don’t need the hassle nor have the time to devote to changing them.

* Mobile media: iPod Touch

* eBook Reader: iPod Touch, but, I really don’t use it. The question of the day, do they have trash novels to download?? At the end of the day, after research and computers and all that, I really don’t care to read anything serious. Give me trash, oh, yea, put me to sleep.

* Browser: IE 8, but looking seriously at Google Chrome

* Calendar: Retired, who needs a calendar? When I do have need of a calendar, Google Calendar is super.

* RSS: reader is Google Reader, burner, say what?? Don’t use a burner, well, I don’t think I do.  I mean, it took me over a year to figure out that I could get the Google Reader to work with blogs written on Word Press.  SIGH

* FTP: Say what???

* Text editor: Word Perfect

* Graphics: PhotoStudio 5., Adobe Photoshop.  For fun: Shape Collage and Picasa 3 and various web sites that do fun thing with collages and more.

* Screen capture: OneNote, Ok, Man told me I would love this program, I was a doubting Thomasina. No longer. I love it, love it, love it! Did I say I love it? Can copy an image, and edit with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. Yea, love it.

* Social media: Facebook, one is enough! * Social bookmarking: Say what?? * Social profile: Say what??

* Office suite: Corel products, I am no fan of Microsoft Office, Word - nope, Excel - I abhor.

* Accounting: File cabinet and a good tax preparer. Have no need for accounting, we are retired! WAHHOOO!!

* Web Conferencing: Say what??    * Firewall and Virus protection: AVG Free

* Spyware: ??? Have Ad-Aware and Ad-Watch, but, this is Man’s area of expertise.

* File cleaner: Don’t think I have this. I do do a disk check and defrag the hard drive once a week.

* Genealogy database: RootsMagic 3, have not upgraded to 4. My excuse NOT to update was I wanted to finish the Lashbrook book, somehow that is still stalled.  Gedview on the iPod Touch.

* Genealogy tools: Transcript (recent discovery thanks to GrannyPam, ohhhh, my, this is as good as One Note). Have GenSmarts, but rarely use these days. Will use any mapping program on line or otherwise, have used them all, AniMap is fab. Picasa3, and Picasa online storage, but not specifically for my genie files. Presentations, by Corel, with my projector/computer when I get the opportunity to teach or do a program. Paper, note pads, pencils, and that explains the messy desk and offices I have.

* PDF generator: Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, provides this for me. Another love affair.

* Music player: iPod Touch,

* Blog: Blogger

* Car audio: Almost never listen to anything in vehicles, if so, whatever radio/cd player, etc is in that vehicle.

* Other tech stuff: Logitech webcam for Skyping with the grandkids.

Sony Cyber-shot digital camera DSC-HX1 (used for cemeteries, documents, discovering new uses every day.)

Newest toy is a magnifying digital camera, see left.  It is by Enhanced Vision Systems, inherited from Man’s mother who is legally blind, she no longer uses it. Hooked up to a telie or monitor this unit is small, it is only a bit larger than my cordless mouse. Small ranks high on my priority lists and it is powerful. Still playing and learning this new little toy. Will be used for reading hard to read documents, small print, etc. 

Olympus digital recorder, very handy in walking cemeteries and recording interviews.

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

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Dead Eye & Knockin' Knees

Recently Man and I were having lunch on the deck, chatting bout stuff. You know how it is, conversations start here and end there, no rhyme or reason, just remembering stories.

Back story, Man had knee trouble, surgery, off work for some time.  Carol views this as opportunity to do a little home improvement project.  There was this paneling on the bottom half of the kitchen walls.  Brown, well, ugly paneling. Course when we removed it, there was a lot of damage to the drywall underneath.  Drywallers we were not, and are not.  So, something must go over all this damaged dry wall, I find this really cool looking stuff to use.  I want to say it was cedar or something, did remind me somewhat of cedar shingles.  It came in different widths and lengths, and you played puzzle/designer by picking and choosing where and how the pieces were placed.  You left space between the pieces, giving depth to the wall.  I loved it!  Trouble was, it had to be applied piece by piece (who said I ever did anything easy??).  We decided to apply with panel adhesive, great stuff, but slippery and each piece of cedar had to be "held" in place until the adhesive dried.  So, we used number 4 finish nails for the "holding" assignment.

Man, with bad leg could not do a lot of this, so, Carol did.  I learned to hammer, use a glue gun for the adhesive, and cut with a sabre saw.  The project was coming along, I was loving it!

At some point, I believe it was one of the sons went down to the basement for something, and proclaimed, "Mmmmmmm, there is water on the floor down here."

YES there was!  The short of it, was that Dead Eye, aka Carol, had put a 4 finish nail (small nail, small!!!) dead center through a "T" in the plumbing in that wall between the kitchen and the half bath.  I think it was 1/4 inch pipe.

We had to pull my pretty new cedar off the wall, cut a hole INTO the dry wall and come up with a method to fix this leak.

Method chosen was for Man to take a propane torch and solder and repair the hole in the "T".  I believe the choice of the torch was made because of the water/dampness remaining in the pipe, the torch would "dry" out the moisture allowing the solder to stick and plug said hole. 

A soldering iron would not get things warm, errr hot enough or dry enough.

So, Man fired up the torch and, yours truly stood by with the fire extinguisher in the ready, in case he caught the house on fire.  And, there is the reason for the knockin' knees.  I had to stand there and watch him "heat" up the plumbing and the wall cavity, with my fingers on the "trigger" of the extinguisher.  When he successfully fixed the leak, I collapsed in a chair, because I could not stand any more.

In my imagination, I could hear us explaining this to the fire department as they put out the flames, errrrr, well, ole Dead Eye here got this "T" in the plumbing with a number 4 finish nail - - - - dead center too by the way.

After some digging through the photo piles, I found this photo, which sorta shows the cedar - it is that dark green stuff on the wall.  Even better, it shows the fire extinguisher, and THE VERY wall I did the deed to.  The hole was behind that microwave cart.  This is where my dead eye, ok, bad luck, and the water pipes made a small bit of "family lore".

Ya, family stories, Dead Eye & Knockin' Knees stories.  A few memories, a lot of giggles, and believe me, I don't care to ever repeat this experience.  But giving credit where credit is due, Man did a right good job with that torch, that pipe NEVER leaked again!

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

* Sabre saw image thanks to cbeasley.com (link not functional as of March 2019)

** Soldering iron and Propane torch images thanks to Sears

*** Fire extinguisher image thanks to ToysRUs (out of business as of March 2019)