Life News – Page 7 – ::: jeffphillips.org :::

40

No, not the U2 song, but Friday, I turned 40. It’s an eye-opening experience and I frequently wonder where the time has gone. I mean: I don’t FEEL 40… except after I work out too hard.

This year, after saving up lots of money by selling off old books, I was given a gift card to make up the difference and purchase a Kindle! For those who don’t know, it’s an electronic book reader which will store tons of books and even automatically download new ones.

Here’s a card Laura put together for my birthday which shows a picture of the old generation one (and a little Photoshop manipulation):

So, it’s been ordered and I’m eagerly awaiting the new device. I’ve even queued up some free e-books to have them downloaded when I turn it on. Book like Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea” and Doyle’s “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” are public domain now and free for downloading. If I were to just read those free books, I’d likely never finish before I turn 80…

But, I’m getting rid of my old paper books and going for the new, easier to store e-books.

Then, Laura can use my old, empty shelves like she wants…

Vonage Foibles

For the last 4 years or so, just after we moved to Virginia, we got Vonage as our home phone. We replaced the Verizon line once we got reliable high speed Internet at the house.

However, over the last month or so, we’ve been unable to see our caller ID due to the “check phone line” being displayed on our handsets. This is very annoying. I mean: how can we avoid talking to you if we don’t know it’s you that’s calling? Seriously!

When we originally got Vonage, I got two phone lines and that mean two adapters. Now, you can do two lines through one adapter, but for some reason, they had me buy two adapters. I found out I really didn’t need that second phone line for fax, that I could just use the number they gave me at work, so I cancelled the second line. Still had the box though.

Since the “check phone line” is annoying and the phone wouldn’t even tell us when we had voicemail, I thought I’d see if the old Motorola box was bad. I put the rarely used Linksys box on the network, did a “move line” from the Vonage web page to the new (old) Linksys box, and Voila! Phones are now working as desired.

Motorola box is now on its way to a landfill.

Even More Cleaning

Now that we’ve shredded most of the documents [after having to wait for the shredder to cool down between bouts] we’ve been working on streamlining our bookcases. I’ve been looking at the Kindle and will now likely buy one. That decision made, I’ve started to clean off my shelves of books that, if I read again, it will be digitally. Some I will not read again, but to know that they are available on the Kindle is enough for me to get rid of them.

Some I will keep never to sell, of course, but that is not what this post is about.

I have a couple of crates of books sitting beside me now: books to sell or otherwise get rid of. I am going to try Craigslist now.

Craigslist has become our friend lately. We’ve sold lots of stuff, including Laura’s old behemoth of a computer desk. That will definitely clear up some space in our basement for a photography studio.

And now, I’m off to type up some Craigslist posts.

Summer Cleaning?

We’ve decided to clean up our basement. Well, it’s not really a basement since it’s not really underground, but it’s the ground floor room. We’re getting this cleaned to accomplish several things. First, we have all this stuff that we’ve carried with us since before we were married and much of it, we haven’t used. So: Freecycle and Craig’s List are getting them. We’ve given away and sold a couple of trunk loads so far. Second, we need a more organized place to work on our computers. Third, we also need some space to set up our studio lights.

In cleaning out things we’ve been carrying around way too long, we’ve emptied some files out of our filing cabinet. Most need to be shredded. Here’s a picture of the pile:

Ant that’s after we’d been shredding a while. We started shredding but had to stop. Our shredded is not capable of high volumes of paper. It told us to stop:

I guess we have to give it a rest now.

Saved By The Elephant

I have a spreadsheet I keep on my laptop with which I keep track of my billable hours for work. The company has a tool, but I like to keep an independent check on it with my own records. Just in case, right? I click on the desktop shortcut I have setup for it and to my chagrin, it says “file not found”. This is not good. I search my laptop and sure enough, it’s gone.

All is not lost, however, since I have Windows Live Sync keeping copies of all my data from the laptop to a share on my server. Of course, the program works flawlessly by replicating the deletion and thereby removing the server copy of my file.

Not to worry, I think. I know that not too long ago, I set up Shadow Copies on the server, which keeps snapshots of changed files. The only problem with this is that it only goes back as far as when I turned it on, which was 2 weeks ago – AFTER the file in question had already been deleted.

My last hope: my online backup system – Elephant Drive. This, like Mozy and other online backup services, has a desktop client [or in my case a server client] that runs and copies files and changes up to the Internet for backup. This is exactly what happened shortly after July 2nd, which was the last time I changed this file.

A simple browse and right-click later, I was saving the file back into its old place on my laptop.

I like Elephant Drive for the main reason that all the other services wanted to charge me MUCH more money just to be able to install their client software on Windows Server. If I have a server, I must therefore be a business and be made of money or something. This is not the case – I’m just a geek with a server or 7 at home and want to keep all of my data and files in one place. So, for $4.95 per month, they let me run it.

It’s now proven its worth. While that particular file might not be worth the $35 I’ve spent so far, the experience I’ve just had certainly gives me a degree of comfort that my files are safe.

My recommendation to you is this: find a backup solution that works for you, but be sure to include automated off-site [or Internet] backup as part of it.

Death And Life

On Sunday morning, July 5th, Laura’s father Larry passed away at his cabin in the woods of East Texas. We knew it was coming, but not how soon. We had booked a trip to leave on 7/12, but on the advice of her brother we moved it to 7/4 for Laura, and I was to come later. However, our plans were to change on the news that morning.

I flew out the morning on July 6th.

Since then, it’s been kind of hectic. Laura has been amazing in her stamina in the face of loss and I’ve been trying to keep up and be supportive. I’ve been helping by organizing and scanning pictures for archival purposes and in hopes of a future slideshow or movie in Larry’s memory.

Media Center: Phase 2

I’m now beginning the second phase of the new media center effort. We’ve ordered two things: a cable card tuner and a new video card. We need the new video card to be able to view HDCP content, such as HD video from the tuners, and a future BluRay drive if we go that route. It also has an HDMI jack which will give us more vibrant color than the VGA jack we’re currently using.

Secondly, we’ll be making a trial run with a single digital tuner so that I can get the system running and make sure it works before ordering the second one.

If all goes according to plan, by next month I’ll have the second tuner and we’ll ditch the cable service provided DVR box and save even more money [we saved over $12 by getting rid of the upstairs cable receiver, and should save maybe $30 or so by getting rid of the HD DVR box set top box].

I’ll let you know how it pans out.

A Day of House Work [In and Out]

Gardening is hard work – especially when you find some kind of rock under the topsoil. Digging around it, we found that it could be broken into pieces. Not easily, but it could be done. So, for the last hour or so, we’ve been digging through it just to get holes deep enough for some flowers. Of course, we had to borrow a shovel to do this work, so that’s now on the list of stuff we have to buy.

The barbeque is going well – I think I have the temperature down where it needs to be. It takes a lot of work just to check on it during the day. I’m glad I have nowhere else to be!

I’m also working on the new web site, or rather, redirecting the old website to the new domain name. This is the web site for our new photography business name: Phillips Photographik. It’s the same site for now that the old one pointed to, but now I’ve changed some of the language to reflect that it’s Laura and I, and updated the contact emails. I still have to update the banner.

It will take some time for us to finalize a logo, but we’ll get it done. At least this gives us a start!

We’ve been stagnant for so long, but things are going to change soon.

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope everyone is having a great memorial day. Just be sure to remember those who gave their lives so that you can live free.

As for us, we are barbequing. It’s what you’re supposed to do on Memorial Day, right? Fire up the smoker and cook the meat. I’m going for 10 hours on the brisket today and I hope it will be good!

At least it’s not boiling hot up here – 70 degrees is nice!

Smokin’!

Well, not exactly “smoking” but the charcoal is. We’re heatin’ up the ole grill and using it to grill some burgers and a kabob this time. We have some new metal grills to replace the old “well used” ones, so I’m really firing it up to season them. But, why waste a fire, yes?

Let’s cook!

Soon, it will be ready to grill and the meat will be sizzlin’.

It’s sure good to be home, now!