I ♥ How to Type

I really do ♥ How to Type.net.

How to Type is a great reference on how to type symbols, accents, special characters, and weird punctuation.

How to type Heart ♥

On Windows:

Hold down the ALT key and type 3 on the keypad

On Mac OS:

Hold down the Command and Option keys while you press T. This will display the Character Palette. Choose the symbol and click the Insert button.

In HTML:
♥ or ♥

VirusTotal

Worried that the file you're about to download might be malicious?  Have the file scanned with over 60 antivirus engines BEFORE you download it - all with one single online tool.

Just go to VirusTotal and paste in the link of the file you want to download.  Note:  That means the direct link to the file, not the page the file is linked from.   (Right-click the link and select “Copy link address” in Chrome, “Copy Link Location” in Firefox, or “Copy link” in Edge. Check your own browser's Help section for instructions) The file will be scanned and the results will tell you how many, if any, of the antivirus engines had a problem with it 

There are also browser extensions for the service available for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

As always, don't depend totally upon one tool to protect yourself and your computer. Your best bet is to make sure you're getting your programs or files from trusted sources.

QWERTY Trivia

F-G-H and J-K-L are the only three consecutive letter sets on a QWERTY style keyboard and they are right next to each other.

Hearts Marathon

Well, it took a long time, but I finally managed to complete my 1000-game Hearts marathon.  I regret I didn't note the date I started, but it was over a year ago. (I checked past Hearts posts to estimate,but couldn't find anything)

Going into the last 100 games, I had a winning percentage of 54%, but I had an extremely bad run and wound up, as you can see, at 52%. I tried to play at least one game each day but found myself playing 3-4 or even more once I reached 500 games and started wanting it to just be over.

There were times when I'd start a new game, then catch the Queen of Spades a couple of times in a row or have my quest to Shoot the Moon ruined and be so far behind, I'd just exit and give up on the game.  What was especially maddening was trying to Shoot the Moon and playing the Queen on the very last hand and have two of the other players lay down the Ace and King and spoiling my hand. 

Which leads me to the firm belief that the game "cheats".  Oh, I know it's just a program, but I do think the code for the game has the computer players "collaborating" and it seems the better I'm doing, that's when "they" do it.  As in my example above, it seems most human players would slough off their Ace and King of Spades when they could earlier in the game as so to not catch the Queen. 

Anyway...I think I'm done with Hearts for a while, but I don't think I'll delete the results and start anew.  No, I believe that when I get over my being fed-up with the game, I'll start again from where I left off, maybe extend the marathon to 2500 games!

Bet you can't wait for THAT post, huh?

Pro But Not Con

You can't name a folder "con" in Microsoft Windows.

Peter's Computer

Dying Gasp

I go into my modem diagnostics/configuration page every now and then to clear out the logs;  they add up quickly because my connection goes out at least once a day, almost always at the same time each night.

The first time I looked at the logs it was an education;  I wanted to see if the problem was on my end (it wasn't) so I looked up each event to see what it meant.  I was clearing it out earlier this morning after getting back online after a day without electricity when I saw this entry (highlighted)

"Dying Gasp"?  Good grief.  It didn't take but a few seconds to find out what it is. I guess it's appropriate in that context.

Half-Hearted

I think it was sometime in May I decided to see just how good of a Hearts player I was. I've had the game on this and my last few computers, but until I got this PC and game, I never did very well. I can't remember if this game came with the computer or I had to download it (it came with my last couple of computers) but I certainly like this version best of all I've played.

So, I decided I'd get a large enough sample of games to be significant and figured a hundred would be good enough.  As you can see by the screen shot below, I did fairly well, winning nearly half the games.  I had started a few games, then got discouraged or had to do something, so when I closed the program, it counts the game as a loss.  I don't know if I would have won those games or not - probably not, because some of them started out badly, catching the queen right off the bat several hands in a row.

Still, I'm fairly proud to have done so well. In the other Hearts programs, I very seldom won, hardly ever over 25% of the time. That's probably about right for a novice Hearts player such as myself. Still, it seemed as though my three computer opponents "ganged up" on me.  I know it's programming, but I couldn't help but think of the computer players as "real"...but "real" players wouldn't have taken the cursing I gave them like I did my computer opponents. (named Huey, Dewey and Louie)

My better play can also be attributed to my better remembering the cards that have been played, which is one of the most important strategies of Hearts but I also think this version of the game is more "fair".  With this version, the other players will seem to try to keep one of them - and me- from "shooting the moon" and winning all the tricks. With the previous games, it seemed as though I was the only one trying to prevent it. 

Now, you may think a blog post about a computer cards game might be silly and you might think I don't have a life posting about it and playing so many games of Hearts.  You'd be right thinking both.  Need proof?

Previous post about Hearts and another and another

Hacker Typer

Want to amaze your friends and/or freak out your enemies? (or vice versa?)

Keep Hacker Typer bookmarked on your computer and when you want to amaze/freak out someone, just open it up and tell them something like "I'm going to hack into the Pentagon." and start flailing away at the keyboard like a drunken monkey.  It doesn't matter what you type, just do it furiously with purpose (maybe bite your lip in an absent-minded way to mimic concentration) and the screen will look like this:

Wanna REALLY freak 'em out?  Tell them you've discovered a back door to Facebook and you're going to change their profile to read something creepy like "I'm a BIG fan of Charles Manson" or that they love Justin Bieber...unless they're really a fan of him, then what's really creepy is that they are a friend of yours.

Hacker Typer

Giveaway of the Day

A fantastic website offering a different program for free each day...but for only a period of 24 hours.

Not everything they offer is fantastic; all too often (usually on Fridays) worthless (IMO) screensavers are the choice. The site is still worth a visit on that day if only to read the comments (complaints) in the message board. (some people would gripe if you hung 'em with a new rope) They also offer up software that can be done by always-free programs. GOTD has had many, many audio file editing programs, some of which I have found useful.

Be sure and scan through the comments as often there will be some helpful advice or even a consensus of bad reviews for the product.

Alert Button

Giveaway of the Day

One of my favorite sites; I am subscribed to the feed as so to not miss a chance on some great, free software.

Granted, not all of the freebies will appeal to you or be something you would want, but I have snagged some nifty and useful programs from the site.

The one major "catch" is that you must download and activate the program on the day that it's offered.  Also, some of the programs don't offer any support.  Still, the price is right!

Here's a ticker to put on blogs and websites showing the day's offering.



Giveaway of the Day

Storage: Then and Now

I recently added another external hard drive to my computer system, one with 2TB storage. Of course, it's not two full terrabytes, because of the odd way manufacturers measure a KB as compared to what the actual size of a KB (decimal vs. binary) There's also the file system to consider, which takes away from the expected total, then the recovery partition on my computer hard drive has to be taken into account.

That said, I was sitting here marveling at how much cheaper hard drives and external storage have become, as well as the relatively huge sizes of them. My first computer was advertised as having 13.1 GB of storage and I never really came close to maxing it out before the computer bit the dust. Oh, I had come "close" a few times, but then I went through and deleted duplicate files and many of the animated GIF files I had transferred from disks to upload to my MSN Groups and not deleting them after the upload.

When that first hard drive failed, I lost everything. I didn't have much "real" music saved to my computer, mostly midi files, thousands and thousands of them, plus photos I had taken and had transferred from film to digital as well as the first photos taken w/ my first digital camera. I was upset, to say the least. That's when I started researching external hard drives. I had saved a few photographs to floppy disks, but they were limited in their capacity, even by the standards back then. My next computers all had CD burning capabilities and I saved many files to disk, but they too were limited.

Around that same time I also upgraded my internet connection from dial-up to DSL and I found myself saving more and more things, such as free songs from Amazon, YouTube videos and all sorts of downloadable games. With the increased broadband came storage concerns; I was running out of room for things and it didn't help that I was transferring music from CDs to my computer for my mp3 jukebox.

So, with my last computer, I also bought a 1TB external drive. When the 'puter bit the dust (not "dead", it just needs a new power supply) at least I had saved all my music and digital photographs. This computer has a 1TB hard drive (actually 914GB what with the recovery space and file system) so that meant I had nearly 2TB of storage.

About a month or so ago, I became a little alarmed after seeing that I had used over 3/4 of my external hard drive's space.  I decided I needed to do something.  I d/l a duplicate file finder and let it go to work. I found thousands of duplicate tunes (the main problem was how I had put music into different genre folders as well as dupes via Amazon, downloading free tunes I had forgotten I had already downloaded) I was also copying folders I use in a monthly "work" folder and not replacing the older folders w/ the new ones. (What can I say? I'm an anal retentive pack rat, albeit a disorganized one.)

I managed to find over 35GB of dupes until I became too bleary eyed to check each file to see which duplicates I wanted to delete. 35GB! In a few hours I had deleted nearly three times as much file space as my first computer had total in storage!  I've probably got another 5-10GB of files I can delete.

What's funny is my first computer having just around 3% (if my math is correct) of the storage I have now, but being more concerned now with how many files I am able to keep! Here's a screen shot of my current storage, both computer hard drive and external drives. (Click for larger view)

Firefox 13.0

Firefox just released the newest version of their browser.  From Firefox 13 Tweaks Tabs, Home Pages, Speed and Security

Before the upgrade, when Firefox users clicked to open a new tab, they saw simply a blank page, unlike browsers such as Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer, which provide users with links to recently opened or favorite sites. Now, the Firefox homepage will feature icons that enable quick access to bookmarks, history, settings, add-ons and downloads. Additionally, when users click for a new tab, they'll see thumbnails to their most recently and frequently visited sites.

I really like the thumbnail part when opening up a new tab and it does seem a little faster.  Only one of my add-ons was not compatible, much fewer than with other releases. 

The funny thing about this is that I've almost always liked the upgrades Firefox has done.  I didn't like the last few MSN Group upgrades and don't like the new Facebook Timeline, so I take offense when people say I (or others) don't like change.  The changes Firefox has done are easier to get used to and are more useful than other "upgrades" I've gone through.  Even going from Windows98 to XP wasn't as bad as trying to get used to the new Timeline. (so that's why I installed some extensions for Firefox that hides it from me!)

I do wish my Windows Media Player on this Vista machine was more like the one I had with my XP computer.  It's definitely not an improvement, I don't care how much they try to convince me otherwise.

The very best upgrade I ever had was going from dial-up to DSL.  Who wouldn't want a hundred times more speed?  (I really need to upgrade to cable, though, but my speed is satisfactory for now)

New Computer

The day started out as usual; checked email, reader, Facebook...the usual. I bumped the cord to my desk lamp and it went off, so I checked the plug and when I did that, I bumped the PC power cord and the computer just quit. I tried and tried to get it to come back on, but no joy. I figured I must have triggered a power surge and fried the power supply.

The thing was getting pretty old - over five years - so I bit the dust and went to WalMart and bought a new one, another HP. This one is great as far as hard drive capacity and memory, but it's Windows 7 and there's a steep learning curve for me on new things. I'm having problems getting used to it, but I'm sure I'll eventually get it sorted out.

 I had some problems getting it to boot at first, dunno why that was. I had bumped the power cord again and I was afraid I had fried something in this brand new one. I did opt for an extended service plan, though, but I was starting to get annoyed that I was going to have to pkg. everything up and take it back. Setting it up - connecting the cords, etc., didn't take long at all, but I spent a good two hours trying to get this thing to work. Since I had been saving files to an external drive, I didn't lose too much - just the stuff in the April "work" folder. Not a great loss, just a little annoying.

 I've also d/l a free a/v program, immediately deleting the Norton's that came w/ this machine. (just a 30 day trial, anyway) I've also d/l a few programs I always like to have: CrapCleaner, HijackThis, etc. and of course, I d/l Firefox.

It's the behavior of this new OS that I will have to suss out somehow. For example,I opened up Notepad to save some information (and I use Notepad several times a day, really handy program) but I don't know where it goes. The icon shows it's there, but I can't get it to come up. Oh well. I've also got to figure out how to get downloads to save to where I want them.

Another program I really don't like is the Windows Media Player. I liked my old one (some old version - I had upgraded once, then rolled it back) I had bare bones processes on my last PC - something like 20 processes at the max, but this one has 60 going. Since it has a lot more RAM, it doesn't seem to slow it down but I still want to cull down the running processes to just those that are necessary.

The one thing I need to really get used to is the new keyboard. This post has taken me twice as long to compose because the space bar doesn't work as well as the last one and I have to really make sure I'm hitting it for a new space. I tried signing in to my ATT/Yahoo homepage but kept having problems, even though I KNEW I was using the right password - then I saw I had spelled my email/sign-in name wrong "sbcglobtal.net" Oh well, again.

My Inter-Tubez Wuz Clogged

WTF? (Yes, I said that, but didn't abbreviate) I was on a page, then it went to another one: Cool Web Search. Hmmm....maybe I had accidentally clicked on a link, done it before. I went back to the page I was on and was reading and about five minutes later I was directed to another page.

Oh, no. I immediately knew what was wrong; I had picked up a Trojan. (which I've always found semi-ironic - a Trojan brand condom is supposed to PROTECT you from bad stuff) I had been on a dicey site earlier, following a link on Facebook. A little research told me what my computer had, the "CWS" (for Cool Web Search) trojan. I then ran my HiJack This app. but it didn't pick up on the infection. Then I ran my anti-virus program, a full scan but it didn't want to repair the damage. An article found in the search had told me this was possible, that the trojan could keep itself from being repaired. I also noticed in my virus scan log that about two dozen attempts at contacting the 'net had been denied by its web guard feature.

Long story short, I d/l a small application called "CWShredder" which zapped the thing out of my computer. I had also d/l another small app. that does the same thing and ran it too. Another virus scan came up clean. I wondered why my firewall hadn't stopped it, then discovered it was disabled. I enabled it and *hoped* everything would be OK. Things were fine until a few hours ago.

Then I started having problems with my internet connection. I have had problems for a year and the phone company has been out and "fixed" it, but when it rains, the connection slows way down. I've been looking into other ISP providers because of the crappy service work. At first I thought it might have something to do with the CWS thing I had got, but another scan came up clean. (I even ran the cleaner tools again)

I was getting frustrated - I had cycled the modem off and on, but no joy. Most of the lights were green, even showing I was connected, but the internet light would only flicker now 'n then. When it was steadily on, I would try to get a page to come up and the activity light would blink once, then stop. Dammit. I don't mind trouble so much, most things can be fixed, but when you can't even diagnose the problem....

I had given up and started watching the TV but there was nothing on I really wanted to watch. I had d/l a couple of Dallas Cowboy talk shows before the trouble, so I got up to listen to them. I always like to do something else while listening to shows like that or music or online radio, either playing a game or looking at GoogleEarth. I opened up the GoogleEarth application just to see if the image files would still be on my disk even though my DSL wasn't working. Lo and behold, my connection started working again!

I don't know what the trouble was, but it was like the "blast" of the GoogleEarth had opened up the inter-tubez again. -grin-

So, for now all is well. If you don't see me on Facebook or participating in the quiz, I'm down until I can suss it out.

(and, after writing all that, I am having problems again. Going to try to send this when the light goes green again)

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UPDATE: Had a little trouble again, then closed GE, then reopened. Everything was fine f/ a while, then went offline again. Now it's OK. I managed to play the quiz. Funny thing, seems like everything is loading faster for me than has in quite a while. Gonna call the phone co. again Monday.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

That's the sound of me backing up...well, I already backed up, but the "beep beep beep" sound is still in my head.  Come to think of it, it was in my head a LONG time before I even got a computer.

Yup, I found my brand new but year old external hard drive and hooked it up.  Was really easy, just plugged it in, nothing to install.  It took a little while, but I copied almost* all the stuff I wanted to the HD; my photos, my music, my porn and nearly everything else.

*I say almost because I couldn't copy a folder;  it's my "work" folder I keep on my Desktop.  I create a folder each month, like "Dec-10" and save everything for that month in it, then after the month is done, I create another and drag the previous month's folder into the current one.  After trying several times and getting an error message, it dawned on me that I must have met some limit imposed by Windows, either the number of nested folders or perhaps maxing out the length of a file name due to that.  Doing a little research, I found there is a limit of 65,536 entries in a directory--that's what I found, whether that's the problem could be debatable.

What's not debatable is I am a cyber-pack rat, saving nearly everything and seldom throwing the stupid stuff away. (which is nearly all of what I save)

Whatever, I got my stuff saved now.  Whew.  I would've hated to have lost my photos, although the "best" have been uploaded to Picassa.  What would've made me sick would have been losing my music, especially the six different versions of "It's a Long Way to the Top (if you want to rock and roll)".

DSL Problems

So I might not be here for however it takes to suss out. I'm lucky to be online now, did so much better w/ it than I did w/ the foreign dude who tried to help me earlier. He was very polite, just unintelligible.

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UPDATE: Still having problems, but it's not on my end. I had arranged for a repairman, but figured I'd best check MY end of things and avoid a service charge. (took longer to cancel the appt. than it did to troubleshoot my connection and make the appt.)

Ran a new line, but still No Joy. It's hard to post things when the posting window times out, so I'll curtail my posting for a few days more. Don't worry about me, I'm fine, just stuck in not-much-more than dial-up land.

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Another "bump" just to let my regular readers know I've not vanished off the face of the Earth. Love to all my friends and family!

(those that read this blog and those that can read)

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Update 7-26

Still have some line problems, but have had OTHER problems to deal with, nothing to concern anyone, also like to take a break from the computer at times.

Resistor Color Coder

Resistor Color Coder is free, and is very useful for determining the color codes or values of 4 and 5 band resistors.

To select the mode, click on the 4 or 5 band resistor icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

The lefthand 3 or 4 bands determine resistor value, the righthand band resistor tolerance.

Download Resistor Color Coder

Spell Quizzer

This came in the mail earlier, just after my previous post (below). That's fast.

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I read your review of Spelling City today in your blog. I've also developed an educational program for Windows called SpellQuizzer that helps children learn their spelling and vocabulary words. It really helped my children with their weekly spelling lists.

I see that you blogged about SpellingCity.com today. SpellingCity is indeed an excellent free tool for teachers and parents. But there are some advantages that SpellQuizzer offers over SpellingCity.com:

• SpellQuizzer doesn't require an open Internet connection. Many homeschoolers prefer not to have their young children working on a computer with an open Internet connection due to all the undesirable material that is on the Internet. With SpellQuizzer there is no need to expose children to the world wide web.
  
  
• SpellingCity.com doesn't have recordings of all the words one might wish to practice. For those it does have the sentences used aren't personalized. With SpellQuizzer you can make spelling lists for literally any words (or even facts) you wish your child to practice with. The recordings you make are in your voice rather than a stranger's. And you can personalize the recordings and even make them funny with an amusing sentence or funny voice. I always try to throw in some funny ones for my daughters such as "Handsome: Your daddy is the most handsome man on earth." That one got snickers. :-)
  
  
• Spelling City has annual fees while SpellQuizzer is a one-time payment of $29.95. You can use it for life after that and never spend a penny more.
  
  
• SpellingCity.com may well be around for ever. Or it may go down for good tomorrow. There's no way to know for certain. A person who purchases a license for SpellQuizzer has the software for life whether I stay in business or not.

As I said, SpellingCity.com is an excellent free resource and I don't mean to attack it in any way with what I've said above. I'm only pointing out reasons one might prefer a product like SpellQuizzer. I would appreciate your reviewing or posting about SpellQuizzer in the Top of Texas Gazette. If you would like to host a giveaway for one of your readers I'd be happy to provide a free license to the winner. You can learn more about the program at

http://www.SpellQuizzer.com.

There's a video demo you can watch at Demo and a community site where SpellQuizzer users can share their spelling lists with one another. I'd be happy to send you a complimentary license for the software. Please let me know if you are interested.

Thank you very much!
Dan Hite
TedCo Software
http://www.SpellQuizzer.com