PC Still Not 100%

I am still using trial and error to finally sort out some problems from my recent PC reformat. Yesterday the computer started to 'freeze' on me, usually at the end of startup which is when I have set up "Skype" to start. My router modem also tends to freeze and sometimes it loses connection with the internet. At other times the VoIP just drops out. (VoIP is telephone calls over the internet).

The modem router has been anything but rock solid lately losing connection all the time. So I have reset the router modem to "Factory Reset" then put in my settings for internet and VoIP again. Is the problem caused by the router modem which causes the PC to freeze or does the PC cause the router modem to freeze? I also tried a System Restore to back before the freezing began! From left to right the 'lights' are Power On, (W/LAN) Wireless is running', (LAN 1) the main PC is connected, (CA) VoIP is connected, (ADSL) Internet is connected. There have been times when the W/LAN, or CA or ADSL light doesn't come on at start up or the light just goes out indicating connection has been dropped!

Last night I downloaded three movies, a total of 2.1 GB. I set the download to happen overnight. I went to bed and during an overnight 'pitstop' I looked in on the computer and I reckoned the computer had frozen again. After restarting it, I saw the three movies had been downloaded OK. The PC must have 'frozen' after the downloading had been completed. If it had something to do with the downloading, possibly a full modem router factory reset was the way to go. We will see. I have now tried that too!

We watched the new Coen Brothers movie "Burn After Reading" the other night. I just loved it but you need a special (warped) sense of humour to enjoy any movie made by the Coen brothers! Trish thought the movie was just OK.

Another movie we both enjoyed was "Butterfly On A Wheel" with Pierce Brosnan. Early on it seemed a little tedious but the ending certainly was fantastic. Sometimes this movie is known as "Shattered".

The computer and modem router are working beautifully right now!

A Quiet Beginning To The Week

As most know I love my cricket! Yesterday we had Queensland playing Victoria in a one day game live from the Gabba on Pay TV. Victoria won comfortably. I enjoyed a couple of quiet ales as I watched the game. I had a long overdue haircut as well.

The rental property next to us has a young family. The house does not have eaves on two sides and this is nuisance as it allows both the rays of the sun and rain in (the latter when left open). The original owner of the house was a born and bred Queenslander and was not worried by the place getting a little warm. There are no fans, no air-conditioning and no sun blinds. A request has been placed by the young family renting with the owner to install fans and or air conditioning to which the owner has replied that if the request was granted it would incur a rent increase.

The young couple have been given a small 'in window' air conditioner which they have installed right next to our pergola and lounge living room. I had a chat to them about it yesterday regarding its position and our comfort level. It still hasn't been turned on as yet so we don't know if there will be a problem for us with it.

Another 10k bike ride this morning and I took a few shots. The one well above left is just of the pathway I can ride along and the photo below it is of "Duckponds", a pleasant little local spot!

The photo below is of the last section of our estate with blocks for sale. It is on a bit of a hill so may have some views of the Glasshouse Mountains. They are good sized blocks over 700 square metres. Prices range from $280,000 to $320,000 per block! A steep price I would think in the current economic climate!

Computer Club

On Saturday morning I again went to the Sunshine Coast Computer Club Meeting. Each Meeting hosts three tutorials or presentations and yesterday I did one of the presentations on Blogging!

You can use one of the club's laptops but I used Trish's laptop this time. I connected it all up to the 'giant screen', put on the microphone and off I went . Unfortunately Trish's laptop is pretty slow so there were several periods of 'dead air' as we waited patiently for a new web page to come up or Powerpoint to reinvigorate itself again and begin to work properly. I had created a Powerpoint Presentation and I needed to move between the presentation and Firefox on the internet.

The photo is of one of the members who was sitting nearby.

I am doing another presentation in a couple of weeks. It will be on Choosing The Best Internet Service Provider For Your Needs. Many Computer Club members seem to find themselves locked in to Internet Plans which don't suit their needs and for long contract periods. They are then 'stuck' with a service which doesn't allow them flexibility to do some of the things they want to do as they become more used to what their computer and the internet can do.

Unlike 'Texas Lou" who is on an Unlimited Downloads plan at 1500 speed for US$19-95 per month, some people here are stuck with 400MB plans for AUD$39-95 per month. Most new internet people seem to go with Bigpond (the biggest Australian ISP formerly government owned) which though having the best service has the worst and most expensive plans.

I will be pointing people towards a web site called "Broadband Choice" which can be found at: http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/

There is a "Wizard" there with which people can type in their phone number and then run through their internet needs and come up with a list of ISP's which most suit their needs. I am one of of over 250,000 registered members of the site. The page also has a ranked list of the ISP's that members belong to and also a ranked list of member's preferred plans.

After the Vista reinstall the computer seems to be working OK. Sometimes it still hangs between the beginning 'flash screen' and when Windows starts to load but this happens very occasionally and seems to depend on how the computer was previously shut down. All in all I am delighted with what I have achieved.

A Hiccup For My Vista Reinstall!

I won't mention what words I uttered when my PC screen suddenly went blank this morning! The computer went into "Recovery Mode" and restarted. After a couple of minutes a 'pop-up' appeared saying the problem had been caused by my nvidia graphics card driver which was in conflict with other areas of my computer. The graphics driver had updated as a part of a Windows Vista Update last night.

I rolled back the driver to the original which I had installed at the beginning and then used System Restore to put the system back to yesterday afternoon. I wasn't sure if the driver conflict had been the sole cause so I went back to before I installed my Firewall too.

The computer seems to running beautifully at the moment so we will just keep or fingers crossed that all is OK.

If worst comes to worst, I just take the PC to the Computer Shop and get them to reinstall Vista again for me and pay whatever I have to pay. The hardware in the computer is fine, it is just the software part which I am reinstalling that is the concern. It takes about a day or so to set it all up again.

I do regular 'backup's to my external hard drive and I back up all my email stuff to Trish's laptop.

I am just about ready to bottle Apple Cider in the next day or and I have been into a big bottle washing day today. I am using glass stubbies for the most of the cider and there are twice as many of them compared to my 'regular' bottling!

Hope you like the joke in the post below.

In Today's Emails!

I have had this one before, hope you get a laugh!

Two 90-year-old women, Rose and Barb, had been friends all of their lives.

When it was clear that Rose was dying, Barb visited her every day.

One day Barb said, 'Rose, we both loved playing women's softball all our lives, and we played all through High School. Please do me one favour: when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's women's soft-ball there.'

Rose looked up at Barb from her death bed and said, 'Barb, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favour for you.'

Shortly after that, Rose passed on.

At midnight the following Friday, Barb was awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to her, 'Barb, Barb.'

'Who is it?' asked Barb, sitting up suddenly. 'Who is it?'

'Barb -- it's me, Rose.'

'You're not Rose. Rose just died.' 'I'm telling you , it's me, Rose,' insisted the voice.

'Rose! Where are you?'

'In Heaven,' replied Rose. 'I have some really good news and a little bad news.'

'Tell me the good news first,' said Barb.

The good news,' Rose said, 'is that there's Softball in Heaven. Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again.

Better still, it's always springtime, and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play softball all we want, and we never get tired.'

'That's fantastic,' said Barb. 'It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?'

'You're pitching Tuesday.'

Life is short... So Remember to Live with No Excuses, Love with no Regrets!

Back On The Air Again!

I have now reformatted my Vista Hard Drive and reinstalled many of my programs. Now the computer seems to start up beautifully, Microsoft Office runs like a dream and everything seems to be going OK. I say "seems" because the reformat and reinstall has not all gone smoothly.

Some of the advice I got, "Put the Vista disk in and off you go!" was a little on the simplistic side.

I have reinstalled Vista (or XP) a total of 5 times over the last few days! What do they say "Fifth time lucky!" However my latest reformat and reinstall has gone quite well following on what I have learnt over the previous 4 installs!

I have learnt about "format" and "partitions". I have learnt you install Vista onto a new partition you want to create. By doing this you overwrite everything on your hard drive, thus giving you a 'clean install'. I now know what each of the disks I received with my PC when I bought it are for too!

The first 2 reinstalls I tried had the 'old Vista' files left on the PC, not what I wanted for a clean install. I installed a copy of XP which allowed me to fully reformat the hard drive (and thus wipe everything off). Then I installed Vista over the top of that. However I made a calculated guess as to whether or not I should install some 'drivers' which led me to a "blue screen of death' about 10 hours later! I should have installed the drivers shouldn't I!

The final reinstall was done slowly, one thing at a time and allowed for Windows to fully update before moving on to the next step. There were still a few hiccups but all seems to great right now!

With 5 installs you can imagine how my stress level was!

I am sure it will be worth while with trouble free computing for the next year or so!

Sunday

Another sunny day with temperatures about to get into the mid 20's again. It tends to cool off about 4 pm most days and then to about 17 or so overnight. Last night was a little cooler getting down to 14 degrees.

However the pool looks great, even though 20 degrees is a little on the cool side for a swim first thing!

It is time for me to 'bite the bullet' and reformat my hard disk drive on this computer. I have been doing some research and backing up all my data (photos, documents, movies etc) and I reckon I will take the plunge tomorrow. A reformat means I totally wipe my hard disk drive and start with a brand new fresh version of Vista. The computer then becomes what it was like the very first day I got it.

Then I will need to go and reinstall all my programs. I will also have to re install my printers, webcam, TV receiver and keyboard. There are few other bits and pieces I will need to have too. I have all the 'disks' with the software on them so all 'should' be OK.

It will take a couple of days to get it all done.

Right now my computer starts up fine about 3 mornings out of 4. On the fourth I have to hold the button to turn it off and then start up again. Sometimes shutting down can take a few minutes too. I am unable to install any "Office" program right now and the automatic photo download program in Vista is corrupted. All small signs that the PC is up for a reformat!

Hopefully all will be OK and I will be back in full swing in a day or so.

Fortunately Trish's laptop is working fine if I have a problem!

Thursday's News

Life continues along quietly and is a little mundane. I have tried to help one of the other members of the Computer Club with her laptop. We have had some success. Most mornings I get to take a bike ride and like to get about 10 kilometres in. Then I have a quick swim in the pool to freshen up but water temps of about 20 make this swim quite 'refreshing' and usually quite quick!

We are entering the 'summer storm' season where tropical thunderstorms sweep across the area dropping heaps of rain with plenty of thunder and lightning. These storms can also have the thunder and lightning but you can miss on the rain. The photo to the right is taken from my desktop and shows the local weather bureau radar which we can get on our PC. There is a link to the current radar available in a link on the right of this page. (6. Brisbane Weather Radar Loop) The more red and yellow means the heavier the rain will be. As you can see we were in line for a storm last night. The storm direction was to the north east so Caloundra was right in its path! I had spread some lawn fertilizer on the front lawn late in the day on the promise we would get some overnight rain which would soak it in to the ground.

Our soil here is poor and it needs as much feed as it can get to encourage the grass to grow!

I was watching a soccer match on TV as the storm approached between Australia and Qatar, it was a World Cup 2010 qualifier match. It had been delayed by 30 minutes as the storm passed through Brisbane! The game was telecast on our satellite PayTV (Austar) and as the thick storm clouds rolled by overhead, the satellite TV signals were unable to penetrate it so we lost signal for about 10 minutes until the heaviest part of the storm had passed through. This morning I saw we had 38mls (about an inch and a half) in my rain gauge! Our rainfall continues to be just above average for this time of year. We are about a month's rainfall ahead of where we should be.

In a few days I will probable need to mow the lawn!

The current difficult financial situation is always in our minds at the moment as hard earned retirement benefits evaporate.

Recently my scanner 'died'. I didn't use it a lot but it was handy to have. A new scanner would cost about $150 so we had decided to live without one for the moment. Nowadays you don't buy a scanner, you by a 'multifunction printer'. This is a printer which can scan, copy and print all in the one machine. I bought one of these for $60. The printer companies make their profit not from the sale of the machine, but from the prices they charge for ink refills. Ink refills cost more than the price of the machine.

The multifunction printer is the one with the black face.

My other printer uses ink refills I can purchase for about $2 each. (These are not 'genuine' cartridges but do the job for me!) Cartridges for the new machine cost over $30 each (one for black and another for color). So I am keeping the old printer for all my basic printing and using the new machine for scanning and copying!

We have dark skies overhead at the moment with more rain imminent! I may have to adjust my overnight rainfall figures if we get much more. It is just after 7 am as I type!

From Today's Emails!

A lovely sunny morning today after a couple of very ordinary coolish days and almost 20mls of rain over the weekend! But the sun has now returned!

Trish returned from Melbourne yesterday!

Two interesting emails arrived this morning!

1. For Our Older Citizens:

I thought you might enjoy this as I did.

Over 50 Don't laugh.....it is all true...

Perks of reaching 50 or being over 60 and heading towards 70!

1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run--- anywhere.
4. People call at 9 pm and ask, did I wake you?
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now won't wear out.
8. You can eat supper at 4 pm.
9. You can live without sex but not your glasses.
10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room.
13. You sing along with elevator music.
14. Your eyes won't get much worse.
15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size.
19. You can't remember who sent you this list. And you notice these are all in Big Print for your convenience.

2. Airline Announcements:

Rarely, Australian airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight 'safety lecture' and their other announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

On an Air NZ Flight with a very 'senior' flight attendant crew, the Pilot said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants.'

On landing the hostess said, 'Please be sure to take all your belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something we'd like to have.'

'There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways to leave the aircraft.'

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Auckland, a lone Voice came over the loudspeaker: 'Whoa, big fella. WHOA!'

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Adelaide, a flight attendant on a Qantas flight announced, 'Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as ******* everything has shifted.'

From a Qantas employee: 'Welcome aboard Qantas Flight X to Y to operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised.'

'In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with more than one small child, pick your favourite.

'Weather at our destination is 32 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Qantas Airlines.'

'Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments.'

Heard on Qantas Airlines just after a very hard landing in Hobart. The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, 'That was quite bump and I know what you are all thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault.. It was the asphalt!'

Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: 'We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal.'

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a 'Thanks for flying United. 'He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had got off except for an old lady walking with a cane. She said, 'Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?' 'Why no Ma'am,' said the pilot. 'What is it?'
The little old lady said, 'Did we land or were we shot down?'

After a real crusher of a landing in Sydney, the Flight Attendant came on with, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tyre smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.'

Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: 'We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurised metal tube, we hope you'll think of Qantas.'

A plane was taking off from Mascot Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number XYZ, non-stop from Sydney to Auckland . The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax - ARGHHH! OH, MY GOD!' Silence followed and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier, but, while I was talking, the flight attendant brought me a cup of coffee and spilled the hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!'

A passenger in Economy said, 'That's nothing. He should see the back of mine!'

Busy Busy Busy!

Things have been quite busy the last day or so. I bottled a brew yesterday and then put two more brews on this morning, one of apple cider, the other of "Old" (a dark beer). At 8 am this morning the kitchen looked like this (see photo to the left). Now I have 45 litres of 'liquid' slowly fermenting in the garage. The cider takes about 6 or 7 weeks before it can be 'tested' so I need to put it on now ready for after Christmas!

Yesterday I again had the pressure hose out cleaning the pavers all around the pool. It is surprising the 'gunk' I get off them! I also had to give the remodelled umbrella stand a second coat of paint and then it was time to clean the front door. Heavy rain and dust means the front door needs cleaning a couple of times each year!

If I use the pressure hose around the pool I always then have to give the pool a vacuum. I visited the pool shop to have the water 'tested' before the busy summer period. I was lucky this time as all it needed was another bag of salt! I put some 'clarifier' in the skimmer box to aid the filter to get out the finer pieces of dirt that sometimes just slip straight through the filter! This meant the filter needed cleaning before I put the clarifier in.

The place is beginning to shape up ready for another summer. I only now need to pressure clean the sideway and do the sideway windows and then it will be all finished.

Maybe after it is all done I will be brave enough to look at the share market again! It is only dismal news at the moment!

At Last It Is Wednesday

After John went home on Saturday it was time for me to begin getting things sorted out for summer time. A couple of days of temps in the low 30's is good sign that summer is on its way! I usually get the pressure hose out and tidy up the sun blinds, the back windows and all the paved areas around the pool. The sideway path sees a build up of dirt too and as well as the front driveway needs to be cleaned. Finally I give all the windows a going over.

In the few days since my last post I have started on the general cleanup. Monday saw me get the blinds, pergola area and the back windows cleaned. Then I got to go down to Caloundra to watch some more of the cricket, Tasmania was playing South Australia.

I even got a 10k bike ride in on Wednesday and then had my first swim for the year when I got back home.

My PC started to play up even more on Wednesday too! It wouldn't start up properly sometimes taking three tries before it loaded. Then if I left it for any time it would freeze up. It is getting closer to a reformat! This morning it loaded perfectly! To top it all off my ISP started to have broadband problems too with me being disconnected several times during the afternoon! All is OK now!

Shaun Tait has opened the bowling for Australia in Test matches. He is one of the fastest bowlers in Australia. Yesterday he was bowling against Tasmania here in Caloundra. I really enjoyed the day and saw Dighton of Tasmania make 123 and Birt a hard hitting 81. Birt took 22 off the over in which he eventually got out. It was great watching!

The cricket interstate carnival is all over now for another year. Today I will do some more tidying up.

Life Has Been Busy!

My mate John flew back to Melbourne yesterday afternoon. He certainly got into the swing of things here and enjoyed the sunny weather and the cold home brew beer of mine. We had a great time and just loved our two days watching some cricket. It was good to see him relax!

Today is really the first day I have had on my 'own' since returning from Melbourne last Tuesday. I have spent some time on the computer but not the Blog Page I am afraid.

I just can't get Microsoft Office to work properly. I did not uninstall a Microsoft Program correctly and I think this has rubbed off on every Microsoft product I have on my computer. Something is telling me I don't have permission to add fonts to my system. I jump onto Google and type my 'error' messages in and do a search. At least it is good to know many other people have my problem. I think it is time to reinstall Vista again!

This morning I readjusted where I have my 'weather station' set up to measure the wind and rain. It was a little sheltered before so I have put it on the other end of the pergola to be more out in the open! We have a blast of summer today with temps in the low thirties! That is about 90 where you guys are Lou Ann! That isn't too bad as I see it is pretty hot in Texas right now too!

I am off to watch a little cricket again this afternoon. I won't be out too long and the pool might be a good place to be later in the day too!

Back On The Sunshine Coast

It was great seeing my brother again on Monday prior to my flying home to the Sunshine Coast from Melbourne the next day. He seems to be coping OK with a difficult situation. Hopefully there will be good news early in 2009 regarding his situation.

We arrived back in the city about 6 pm and spent the night with our daughter Kim. We had a great meal and we slept there overnight. I had a tummy bug which made the night less pleasant for me! Kim got me to the airport at about 7:15 am on Tuesday where I caught up with my mate John Logan. There is a pre season cricket competition on the Sunshine Coast featuring some of the best players in Australia. John is a keen cricket watcher and came up with me to enjoy a few matches and some sunshine.

It was also a chance for him to see his mum again and complete a couple of chores she needed done. He stayed with her Tuesday night.

We had a great day watching Victoria Vs Sth Australia on Wednesday. A few quiet drinks and a magnificent 84 from Brad Hodge making for a great day. Our meal at the Caloundra RSL was above average for that place and we were home by 8 pm. I put on a thriller movie called "Stuck". It was not quite to John's taste!

There is no play at the cricket today so it will be a day to unwind, perhaps put a brew on, and just have a good relax. There has been very little rain here while I have been away and there have been some warm days. John enjoyed an 'ice-breaking' swim in the pool this morning! It is just under 20 degrees in the pool, a little cool for me!