Monday, August 10, 2015

Hokey Smokes, If Technology Wasn't So Great...

...I'd take a baseball bat to it.


Everything hit at once it seems.

Norton 360 sent me an update in June that turned out extremely buggy. I uninstalled and reinstalled it after trying to find a fix on their site. So disappointed in them.


Windows 10 was rumored to be scary with bugs and the eyesight of Sauron. But I haven't had a problem. Very happy with it. Edge doesn't do much for me but learning the *very* slightly different format was a snap.

The tech problem du jour is with forwarding comments to my other email account. 


My server switched from Gmail to Zimbra. Coincidentally, all comments forwarded to my personal email (Not Gmail) have been rejected. 

At this point I can't tell if Gmail is at fault or my new webmail account. I do suspect my new server is the worm in the apple but haven't been able to fix it yet.

Add all that to the above problems and I've found that the solutions are taking hours of my writing time.


Color me very Put Out.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

IWSG - Vacations


These are the continuing voyages of the Ninja Captain, AJC. His mission, to explore all new writing venues, to seek out new authors and new blogs. 
To boldly go where no blogateer has gone before.
Coming together on the first Wednesday of every month for a virtual pat on the back. 

Vacations and How to Recover From Them.

I wrote not one word on any wip for three weeks. Talk about Writer, Interrupted.

The assailant that muted me? Call it Family Vacation.
No composing during:
  • The Planning (where, when, the attractions, itinerary, Google maps) 
  • The Get-Ready (clean house, mow yard, gas vehicle, pack, bake cookies) 
  • The Travel 
  • The Actual Vacation 
  • Recovery (mountains of laundry, mow the yard...again)

With all that, how does an author find the chance/time to write?

So now, back to the schedule. And where did I leave my ambition? *patting pockets*

On the farm. Holy Talking Cats. When will it stop raining? There are parts of the yard that haven’t dried out since April. The fields and hay ground are the same. Corn and soybeans love hot, humid weather with a judicious amount of rain at appropriate times. It should be dark, dark green. Instead, with the rain coming every two to three days, the crops are a sick yellow.

Movies and TV. With the most excellent luck I’ve had finding great new TV to watch (Mr. Robot, Dominion, Humans), I had high hopes for Dark Matter and Killjoys.

*crash burn*

Those shows are turning out to be what I call the domino format. Set a line of dominoes up then knock the first one over. It is the hook and both shows pulled me in...at first. 

But the next set of dominoes were like a an executive's formula: “In order to have a successful show, we must have a belligerent outcast who is lovable or broken, a wishy-washy individual, a strong female with a soft side.”

Plink, plink, plink.

At that point, I yawned and quit watching. The only thing worse is the obligatory teenage angst rebelling against authority or the precocious youngster who stuns everyone with their insight.

Some TV shows start out with the formula but branch out. The Walking Dead royally ticked me off with its stereotypical portrayal of a redneck. But it moved. It shifted and jumped off the Been-There, Done-That train.

Book World. I read Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. Review is coming with a helping of Controversy.


How you do cope during vacation season? Is it raining pitchforks and hammer handles where you are?

Monday, August 3, 2015

Windows 10, Blogger, and Norton...

...Not the Best of Friends.

I took the chance and installed Win 10. I had Win 7.

The initial verdict is decidedly undecided.

It does seem faster. The screen is familiar but Control Panel is hiding. Ah HA!, there it is. Right click on Windows icon and everything pops up. That's how I found the Paint program.

Unlike 8.1, the Start button is present. It seems to incorporate more of the total screen area, a nice bonus since I have a bigger monitor now. But it isn't all sweet sugar and ice cream.

The new browser, Microsoft Edge, is a re-done of IE. It is adequate but limited. It sniffs like a dowager at extensions such as Norton 360 Internet Security. Microsoft never played nice with Symantec anyway but it would have been a pleasant surprise if they'd kissed and made up.

Norton isn't performing as it once did anyway. Want to search your online storage? Ha. Forget it. No "purge files" there anymore. Only a button for Buy More Storage. 
Their website is stumbling like a drunk down a crowded street. If they can't keep their site up to snuff, why would I trust them to catch viruses?

And so I am looking for a new Internet Security download that offers online storage. Or not, as the case may be. Any suggestions?

Blogger was the biggest disappointment in Edge. It stays in HTML mode and if there is a button to change it I haven't found it's hiding place yet. Do I need to say how hard it is to edit in HTML? Especially if you're used to Compose?

Cortana is snarky and mostly unhelpful. Siri on my IPhone is hilarious and provides much unintended complications, but she (it?) is useful. I had hoped Cortana would be the same but so far not really.

UPDATE: Windows 10 is definitely faster. For that alone, I recommend it. I hope it will allow extensions soon but Norton is becoming a nightmare. Don't know what happened to them but I am crossing them off my Christmas list.


Have you tried Windows 10? Gonna? Got a favorite Internet Security/Virus Scan program?


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