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So one day it happens that I’m sitting quite happily, working away in my little windowless office, when the phone rings. After a brief moment of annoyance at the disturbance of my solitude, I realize it’s an internal call from one of our sales staff. For the sake of anonymity we’ll just call her SalesladyX. SalesladyX is not known for being the brightest bulb in the pack on the best of days. And she obviously does not understand my patience is easily worn out. This is almost exactly how the conversation played out.

patndoris: Hello?
SalesladyX: Hi Doris! Can you help me?

What? Do I look like the Shell Answer Man?

patndoris: Uh….ok…with what?
SalesladyX: Can you help me find Word?

OMG!…you have to be kidding me. She’s only worked here for how long? I grit my teeth and give being semi-nice a half-hearted attempt by curbing my evil desire to ask her what word she needs help finding. (Because if I did ask her - she would be completely and utterly confused and I’d have to try to un-confuse her for which I do not have anything remotely resembling the patience.)

patndoris: It’s in your programs. You know - on your computer? It’s not hidden on the network or anything.

Nope. Pretty sure Word isn’t playing hide and seek with us today. The utter and complete silence from SalesladyX clearly indicates she has no idea what I mean - so I continue, hoping when the two brain cells collide in her head they might form just a wee little spark.

patndoris: In the bottom left corner of your screen click on Start, All Programs, then look for Microsoft Office.
SalesladyX: I see Microsoft Update….uh…oh…wait…there it is Microsoft Office! Is that Word?

Pretending I don’t even hear that…

patndoris: …and when you hover over that…with your mouse…

You know that little thing you feed the cheese to? Oh wait! I didn’t say that out loud did I? Whew! No I didn’t. Good - if I had she might have taken me seriously.

patndoris:  …you will probably see Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word?
SalesladyX: I see PowerPoint…and Excel…and…oh! There it is! Microsoft Word. Thank you so much.
patndoris: Uh-huh. No problem.

Now I know why IT guy is so grumpy.

Well, it’s been about 3 weeks since I installed Windows 7 on my 64-bit machine. My just shy of 15 year old male offspring has had it about a week and a half longer than I. Installation was flawless on both machines but if you are upgrading from Vista please take time to run the Upgrade Wizard ahead of time to look for any possible problems that you’ll want to address.

My son has experienced a few more burps than I have. Odd since his was a complete flatten and rebuild on the 32-bit laptop. He’s had a lot of driver updates on his HP machine. My Toshiba has had a few, but a lot less. My only complaint is random BSOD, specifically when I plug in a USB flash drive. Today it happened 4 times in a row. I waited a little while and tried again and it was fine. Not sure of the culprit. Other than that and getting used to a few minor visual changes it’s great!

I’m running Panda Cloud AntiVirus on both (which is now out of beta) and thus far I’m still very happy with it on both machines. Not all cleaning tools work on Windows 7, and many don’t work on 64-bit machines. If you are on Windows 7 be sure to check that your malware and cleaning tools are approved for your new (or newly upgraded) machine.

That’s it for my quick update….off to do the myriad of other things that seem to take up all my time these days. I will be glad when things settle down again!

As of late, I’ve been doing a lot more reading. No, not online…well, not exactly. I’ve been reading on my iPhone. The free Kindle app along with massive amounts of free downloads from the Kindle store (free ones are there if you figure out the secret to finding them), has given me a wonderful respository of great books to read whenever I can find a few minutes to spare.

Recently I started a book I just couldn’t put down. It was one of the best reads I’ve had in a long time. If you have a chance, grab a copy at your local library. (It was a good read, but not so outstanding that I’d encourage you to actually pay for it.) I’m not going to bore you with my rendition of a synopsis (you can read a couple of them on Amazon if you care to).

The Templar Legacy: A Novel

For those of you who have no intention of paying for a Kindle or an iPhone, never fear! Amazon has released a Kindle application for the PC.  And now, I’m off for a bit of a lighter read - something in the trashy romance novel section please…

He really wasn’t itsy bitsy. But he wasn’t three feet tall whilst standing on his back legs and about to bite me with his mammoth fangs either. It was Thursday October 22, 2009. The boss and I had travelled downtown to meet clients for lunch. After a wonderfully enjoyable and productive meal we we headed back to the office. As I plopped down in the passenger seat, I noticed a spider on the outside of the car’s windshield almost directly in front of me. His furry body was probably 1/2″ across and he had  several white bands around his legs. From leg tip to leg tip he was probably 1 or 1-1/2″ across. It was slightly intriguing to see him so close and yet with no worries he might reach out and get me.

As a rule, I don’t like spiders - especially ones of his size. (I can tolerate the little white house spiders, but that’s where my interaction with them ends.) However, he was on the outside and I had a very good view. As we pulled out of the parking lot at the restaurant, I was convinced he was going to fly off and that would be the end of him. But, no. He was a lot more tenacious than expected. As we’d make turns, he was almost compass-like. He’d turn and re-adjust his position, all eight of his little legs making precision steps on the glass. Baltimore City traffic during the early afternoon isn’t horrible, but there was some. For several miles we didn’t really get moving very fast. I was oh-so-sure when we hit the highway  he’d go whooshing off to spider la-la land.

Interestingly, still no. That little bugger held on for dear life! I was really intrigued at this point. 55-60 miles per hour and he was having no trouble. Windshield wind surfing must be his thing. I tried to get a picture with my iPhone camera, (after all I did install the free app that lets me do 4x zoom with very little quality loss), but the car was bouncing too much to get a decent picture. I decided to wait until we returned to the office, and if he was still there, I’d snap one or two or ten. It is after all a rather unusual view of a spider like that.

Then I made a mistake. I mentioned to the boss the spider had been on the windshield for the last 20 minutes. Now, I’m sure visions of windshield wiper horror flood your brain. No, he didn’t smash him. (Besides - that would have made a nasty icky streaky mess on the glass.) But as we merged onto the Baltimore Beltway he punched the gas, and we determined that the little spider had to let go at approximately 75 miles per hour. I admit I was a little sad, I did so want to try for a picture.

A quick Google for Maryland spiders (and how to identify them) brought me to an interesting realization. I don’t think I’ve actually seen a spider like him before. He appears to have been a Phidippus audax or Bold Jumping Spider. I never got to see him from the top side, but based on what I could tell he looked something like this photo. Although, there were no visible markings on his belly.

I’m cerrtainly glad he was on the outside of the window and not in my house. Because they don’t subdue their prey with silk, they do have poison in their fangs. The enter homes in search of insects - big surprise! He is a spider after all. They rarely bite humans, but care is advised when handling them.  According to eHow.com “…These spiders are aggressive and spunky, with a bite that hurts, but lacks any dangerous poison.” Yes, well, I promise there was no way I was planning on getting close enough to him to find out!

And that my friends is your arachnid story and lesson for the day.

I’ve been running Panda Cloud Antivirus on my XP and Vista 32-bit machines since right after it’s initial public beta release. I really like this antivirus program because it’s light. It doesn’t bog down my machine. The scans are "always on" so there is no need for daily (or scheduled) full scans and my definitions are always up to date. Most importantly, it doesn’t slow down my machine.  Granted, I’m not what I’d call a "high risk" user. But at the same time, I’m not overly cautious in my web surfing. I’ve been waiting for the 64-bit version…and now it’s here! I didn’t see any big fanfare about it, but when I checked Panda’s site the other day - lo and behold there it was. The answer I’d been waiting for.

Now, I realize, a lot of people don’t think this application is as good as those that have been around for awhile, and perhaps it isn’t, but it works for me. I haven’t had any malware or viruses slip through. It’s important to remember that no antivirus solution is 100% secure. The malware developers are always a step ahead of the malware removal applications. In this recent blog post there are details about detection rates and I think Panda does quite well at #1 with 99.4% detection.

This is still a beta, but it’s free, and it’s a program I really like. Unless I find some big glaring reason, I doubt I’ll switch back to standard antivirus programs. I was having a problem where AVG (when scanning) would churn away increasing my laptop temperatures upwards of 125 degrees. Since installing Panda Cloud Antivirus, it has not topped 109 and my overall usage (on both cores) has been reduced significantly. It’s important to note that immediately after installation it does do a full scan. This scan is not faster than a traditional AV program, but I did not notice any performance degradation during the scan. After the initial scan, unless you choose to run a full scan for some reason, your machine is always protected. Even if you have no internet connectivity, there are a set of definitions that will still be protecting your machine.

If you’d like to know more about how Panda Cloud Antivirus works take a look at this article.  I researched this before my first installation of the program, and I was confident enough in the theory that I was willing to put a beta AV on my machines. If you know me, you know how seriously I take security on a computer and this was not a decision I made lightly.  I have not regretted this choice for even a moment. My personal opinion is this is worth testing out. If you don’t like it, you can always go back to a traditional antivirus program, but I think you will like it as much as I do.

OK, so I’m a cheapskate…tightwad…whatever you want to call it. There are times when wastefulness really gets to me. For years I’ve had an issue with…you will never believe this one…French fries.  Yes, the poor little humble French fry has been the bane of my existence for some time. To be fair - it’s not the French fry in general that I have an issue with. It’s the left over French fry. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried - but it’s darn near impossible to re-use them as leftovers.

Now, when it comes to home-style large cut fries, I have been able to successfully re-crisp them on the George Foreman grill. However, it takes a long time and requires quite a bit of patience (something I don’t usually exhibit.) But far worse on the potentially making it to the trash can scale are the fries from the local burger place. They give you enough fries to feed a small third world country. It pains me to throw away all those perfectly good fries, but let’s be honest - once they are cold and/or have been in the fridge overnight - who’s really going to eat them?

Tonight, I had a flash of genius! I decided I was going to actually re-purpose the left over fries into something edible. Yep, that was my mission and I chose to accept it. I just couldn’t bear to throw away 1/2 a paper bag full of fries (yet again). So let me tell you how it went:

i put the slightly dried out fries in the blender with a fair amount of milk. I tried the soup and baby food settings on the blender but they did not render a satisfactory texture. Then I tried the batter setting. Victory! It worked perfectly.  In a bowl I combined my now perfectly pureed potato mushy slightly liquidy stuff, a couple big spoons of sour cream, Velveeta (American pasteurized) cheese, shredded Mexican cheese blend, a healthy helping of bacon bits, and some pepper. I stuck it all in the microwave long enough to melt the cheese, added a little water to thin it slightly more and voila!

In case you didn’t figure it out, it started as French fries and turned out as potato soup. Well, it’s really thick and more like a chowder but you can make it to your preference. I can’t say this would work for all kinds of fries. And certainly you need enough of them to make the effort worthwhile. A small fry from McDonald’s isn’t going to cut it for making soup. But if you have enough to make a go of it - give it a try! The male offspring even made the comment we were going to have to go buy fries next time we want potato soup - he apparently prefers this to the regular kind. Keep in mind however, fries are well - fried. Even remade into soup they are far less healthy than boiling potatoes and making a similar base for a soup. There is however a small sense of satisfaction at finding a way to reuse the little buggers and I don’t plan on throwing out bags full of them ever again (uh, unless we get tired of potato soup!)

For the last couple of years, I’ve had a free account with both Flickr and Photobucket.  They both have their advantages, but lately I’ve had the nagging feeling I should be trying to consolidate my photos into one site.  Managing accounts on two sites is becoming tiresome. (Yep! That translates to "I’ve got the urge to get into something else to take up more of my time because I don’t already have enough on my plate.” Or maybe I just need something new to keep my mind off other things, who knows…) After some serious consideration of both sites (yes the pluses and the minuses), I decided on the Flickr Pro account.

The 200 most recent photo display and limited sets were a drawback of the Flickr free version. Photobucket didn’t have the same limits, but it also doesn’t have what I consider the same reputation either. While both Flickr and Photobucket have good functionality, decent features, nice uploaders available and play well with lots of other sites - the iPhone app for each is what made the difference for me. The Flickr app is much slicker and faster than the Photobucket one. I found the Photobucket app brings up an image as blurry and then focuses it. Depending on network speed at the time, it is an unacceptable quirk for me. I also use Picnik, a great online photo editing site, and it’s set up to integrate directly with Flickr.

So, with my decision made, I went ahead and made the jump last night to charge my credit card and get moving on integrating everything. For the next several weeks (at least) I’ll be working on moving my pictures from one site to the other and getting some other photos uploaded that I may not have shared before. It’s a task in and of itself deciding what to put online, what to make public, how to tag it, etc. Then I may just get back to my existing project of scanning old photos to preserve and share them as well. And just how does any of this relate to Flickroom you ask?  You know - that extension referenced in the post title? Glad you brought that up!

Just the other day I saw a write up about Flickroom.  It’s a beta - but it was compelling enough on the surface that I bookmarked the site and went back to take a look at the application that same night. I already have the Flickr uploader which works well, but this application is a little different. It’s far more than just an uploader. It’s built on the Adobe AIR platform and I’m really impressed with it. The installation is quick and painless (as I’ve found most Adobe AIR applications to be) without a lot of requests to install extra crud or make a lot of choices. The authentication to allow the use of the extension is no more difficult than it is for any other site. I was up and running within a matter of minutes on Flickroom. 

It boasts a dark theme that really allows photos to display well. It’s a nice simple interface and it works as both a photo browser and drag-and-drop uploader (as you would expect). You can view your Photostream (or map), add comments, tags and notes, as well as put photos in to sets or groups, save to disk or Tweet about your photos. Notification of activity on you Photostream is virtually instantaneous.

You can also browse your contacts and groups, or explore all users and mark favorite photos. An interesting feature is a chat room where you can talk to other Flickroom users. I took a quick look (although I didn’t stay to talk) and I’d say there were at least 25 or so users in the chat room on a Saturday afternoon. That’s not a bad ratio if you just want to talk with other users and photo buffs from around the world. I think you’ll enjoy trying out this application as much as I am….though I think mine will be getting more of a workout over the next several weeks. While I’m certainly not going to uninstall my official Flickr Uploader, I really like the Flickroom application. It’s an app I definitely recommend you try out.