Updates and What and Why

I pity the regular person who is not computer literate. We get these updates on a regular basis. By default most just download and install by themselves and nobody is the wiser. Except the illiterate computer uses that are frustrated because their computers have become slow or unresponsive. First thing that comes to people's minds is, 'I must have a virus'. Maybe but what does one do. Over the years I have learned that it is better to pay for a complete antivirus suite that help protect me. Many will argue over which product is better. You can either listen to someone else or try different ones until you find one you like. But, there is what this post is all about. TIME. So much time is devoted to our computer either in use or upkeep. If you are lucky enough to not have filled your hard drive with rarely used programs you might not have much trouble. But, the more you have loaded the more resources the computer has to use to keep up with it all. I have worked hard for years to keep the background resource usage to a minimum. To save the computer for me when I want to use it. I have turned off automatic updates on everything. Starting off with Windows Update. With Windows 7 you only get one update a month which is a blessing. Then there is Adobe Flash Player. Today I restarted the computer and first thing I see when logging on is an Adobe Updata for version 11.8.800.94 at 16.3mb of data. I don't know how much I really use Flash. I believe it is only for advertising and maybe some news articles I sometimes view. I have not put that much time into studying that but I'd rather update to keep the malware and Flash player attacks away. I have my antivirus set to update every four hours. It's quick and not that big a deal. It won't slow your computer down like an Adobe Flash update will. So, here's to those that like to know what's going on under the hood and are trying to stay on top of things. Good luck to you!

Google+ and Google Circles and less Facebook

I don't know about you but I have been giving less and less time to Facebook and more to Google+ and Google Circles. A new routine is embarked upon now. Boredom and letdowns is what always eventually turn me onto another path. Change is good for sure. As I am constantly on the lookout for the next new and great thing, I hope to post more on my blog here for anyone that may be interested in my findings. Lately though world events have cluttered my mind and it is hard to keep from noticing with all the push from the media. Rarely do I turn the television on anymore as there is just too much advertising and it gets old real fast. I use the fast advance on the DVR with the remote always nearby when a commercial is about to cut in. To hell with all of that I say. If I am going to buy something I will go looking on the web for it, not the tube. My television is like a plain old monitor to me. I only use it when I want to use the DVR appliance attached. So, here goes another day, hoping the rainy season goes away quickly. The lawn is waterlogged and it was a mess to cut yesterday. I had to change the blade to the regular one instead of the mulching one. The mulching blade was just leaving too much fine cuttings in clumps on the lawn and I have already had to deal with one outbreak of chinch bugs now. I'm sure there will be more to come. How I hate a lawn anymore. I will leave you with a thought today. Get more sleep and eat less. Don't forget to try and get some regular exercise. It just feels better if you do.

U.S.P.S lost my mail again. Am I the only one this happens too?

I know times are tough and budgets are being cut but this has been happening long before now. I bought something on eBay last week and the carrier left one of those slips telling me they missed me or something of the matter and that I could pick up my parcel the next day at 10:00 AM. I drove there and went to the window and the lady was a long time in the back looking and I knew I was cursed again. Sure enough, she tells me it isn't on the shelf where it is supposed to be. I gripe a little but am told I could talk to the manager. Oh, talk to the manager again. A lot of good this will do I thought as it has done nothing in the past. So, I walk over the side door and press the buzzer. I wait about five minutes and a guy comes to the door and I tell him my problem and he takes my slip and goes wandering away to the back somewhere. I wait another five or more minutes and he returns to tell me the bad news again. Okay, so now what I ask. He says the guy that had my parcel should be in about 10:30 AM and he could call me. No, no, no! I am not driving back here when this is not my fault. He explains it's a new guy on the route and that they are trying to split this alternate route into two or something like that. I really didn't get what he was telling me and not that it matters to me anyway and why is my subdivision an alternate route. Just get me MY mail to MY mailbox, please? Is that so hard? So, I tell him I'll wait in a chair over there on the side and be patient. I sit around for ten or fifteen minutes. I left my phone in the car and there are no clocks anywhere to be found in this post office. The manager comes out and tells me the package is not on his truck and begins telling me something else, I didn't pay much attention. He went on to say that he would find the parcel and have it delivered to me, today, I hope but I didn't get any promise either. He took my phone number and he had me sign the slip. As I'm signing I'm thinking what in the hell am I doing. I haven't received anything and he's having me sign this slip now? I know this is going to get deeper and I'll be back here to let you know how I'll soon be asking for another parcel to be sent and the postal service can reimburse the seller on eBay for the loss. Or, some such thing or another. I've been cursed all my life with stuff like this and I feel like I am the only one this happens to. I have just become used to it now and accept that nothing will ever go right in anything that I try to do that involves another human being. And then I just have to spend more time to work through to find a solution. As I age now I find time is more valuable and getting to be more valuable as time goes by. I never thought about it when I was a kid or when I was a lot younger. Time just seemed to never move then. Life sure is strange but then I can't say that anymore as I find I am understanding it a lot more now. That is another deeper subject I hesitate to go into here as it would bore the hell out of everyone reading this if you kept with me this far. So, till another day...! Update - Saturday night - No package, no phone call from the branch manager, nothing. As I expected. Now, wait till Monday. I know that day will pass too and nothing will happen. It will be up to me to have to call and try to get the manager on the phone and ask him if he even remembers me and what the status is of my parcel. I can barely keep my anger contained with this fucking bullshit!!! Late Update 7/27/2013- The mail person delivered my parcel the next day. I had sat in a chair in the garage for a while waiting, thinking it would arrive this way. But, I soon gave up and realized I am agonizing over this way too much. Needless to say, it was delivered of which I am thankful that I will not have to put in any more time on this.

Laptops and Tablets, what are you views?

Have been looking for a new notebook or laptop computer for over a year now. I am tired of this old HP dual core model I have. It is heavy for one thing and the battery is what weighs the most. The battery does not last long any more and I do not want to buy a new one for this old portable computer. I have been to the brick and mortar stores and looked at and lifted many of them. I am keen to Lenovo as I like their styling. Especially after having bought the desktop model a couple of years back and loving it without having any problems so far. So, with that, I welcome anyone's comments. I am looking forward to the new models soon to be out too. I have read where the new 4th generation processors work on 1.4 or 1.5 volts. That equates to a lot less power consumption and longer battery time. It would be cool to do tests of different laptops and their battery lasting power time. Are there any manufacturers out there who would care to donate? Just get in touch with me here. I am ready to go! Oh, tablets. I didn't mention anything about tablets did I. ;)

CreditKarma, Credit Cards and Your Financial Best Interest

We all use them and we all hate them. Lately I have been researching them. I have come across a couple of websites that have some very good information about credit cards with ways to find the best card for your purpose. I have been using a PayPal debit card for years now and did not realize that there were now other banks offering better returns like two and three percent cash back on purchases. One that stands out on top of the list is Bank of America. If you go to CreditCards.com you will see what I am talking about. There is a disclaimer at the bottom of this webpage that tells you that the owner may get compensated for certain company product offerings or advertising. I have spent two days now looking around and reading terms and conditions of different credit cards and what they have to offer. I had not realized that there are different cards for various reasons you may want one. Travel cards, cash back cards, reward cards, gas cards and I forgot what others. I am looking for a better cash back card myself. I pay my balance off each month and never have more than one card with a balance at one time. I do not like paying the banks interest on my purchases. Things are just expensive enough as it is. Besides, like I said above, you can get into the interest debt game and you can be in deep debt before you know it. Okay, if you have a smartphone, you have to get the CreditKarma app. It gives you your credit score within seconds of signing in and you stay signed in and only have to tap the app to see your score at any time. The other best feature I like is it will list all of the accounts you have open on another screen. Using the app it will tell you ways to make and keep your credit score high and in excellent 'A' territory. One rule I learned was never close an account. Credit history is what matters most I believe. If you close an account you just deleted credit history. Never missing a payment is a priority also of course. I have been looking for a new mortgage loan and after applying at three different lenders I find with each there is a credit inquiry that will take two points off my score. These inquiries are known as 'Hard' inquiries. Okay, I lost six points but I am not too worried about it as I am still over 700 and I am fine with that. I will make a decision soon to get a new cash back credit card. It is just a bit hard for me to accept that I will open myself up to yet another bank that will begin to send me more junk mail in my snail mail box on the curb. For years now I have tried to stop what was once an enormous pile of daily junk mail that I would have to weed through and toss most of it into my recycle bin or the shredder. But, now I am about to embark on slowly trying to get my credit score as high as possible. Just to see if I can. I like challenges. Take advantage of banks, don't let them take advantage of you. Have a good credit day! I took the time to search on Amazon a book about how to get the most out of credit cards. Even though it was published back in 2008 I could not find a bad review on the side panel. The electronic or Kindle edition is only $9.00. I may have to buy it and read through it. I have to wonder how relevant it is today though.

Spam Scam Emails, What I Am Getting At This Time!

I have been getting a lot of scam spam emails now with subject lines something along the lines of 'Your Order' and 'Shipping Details', etc. I have been in the habit of opening emails now and looking them over closely just to see what scam they are promoting now. First thing you do before you open the email is to hover your mouse over any word or word phrases that are highlighted in blue. Then if you look down at the bottom left of your screen you will see where the link would send you if you clicked on it. By looking closely at the details of the links you can easily see that if you were to click on the link you would be sent somewhere other than any official company website of which the scammer alludes to in the email. Thinking all this time that you have not ordered anything to begin with, or maybe you have. Clicking on the link can give you any number of things. The worst being some type of malware being dumped into your hard drive and causing you any number of problems from there on. This is where an antivirus program would have a good chance of stopping the threat before it could do any harm. One of the most common I have seen the last couple of years is the one where the malware will send out bogus emails to everyone in your contact list and more. I have gotten good at spotting these emails from contacts. I received one last week from someone I had forgotten about and never email anymore and never receive email from. I opened the email and I knew before I opened it that it was a malware spam message. It was easy to spot from the number of bogus looking email adddresses that were included along with my email address. I used to respond back to 'All' and try to alert those people included with the email but I would get some crazy replys. People giving me hell for sending them the spam and other nonsense. They just did not get it from the start. So, I just leave people alone now and let them learn and suffer on their own. Another note here, there was this information from the government years ago, I think it was the FTC or Federal Trade Commission, can't remember now. But, they had a bulletin that stated that you could forward them any spam emails and they would work to try to stop the barrage we were getting. Well, they did a good job back then as things seemed to quiet down quite a bit but over time spammers from Nigeria and other places began to get busy. Back to what I wanted to say about the FTC bulletin. I noticed that as I began forwarding the spam messages to the email address I was given I would begin to receive even more spam mail and with some really weird stuff too. I think I even clicked on one just to see what would happen and I got a virus that I never could get rid of. That computer was retired long ago. I still have the hard drive and one day think I will reformat it and use it for something else. So, last night I sent a spam email to the old FTC spam reporting email address again just to see what nonsense I get back in my spam folder. I have to wonder if we do not have young people working in that department and they are just harvesting all the emails they receive and then selling the lists to the Nigerians. Corruption is everwhere it seems. Have fun, be safe and do not be so quick to click! Buy antivirus software, it's like insurance for your computer. Yeah, they are not all the same and they are not one hundred percent but it is better than nothing in my opinion. One day I would love to sit down and read a book like this or any of the others shown on this page.

Video On Demand, Any Show That Has Aired, For Only Fifty Cent!

As I laid down to take a short five minute nap a thought occurred to me. Having had the opportunity and the time to record my favorite shows on an old Tivo Series II recorder some years ago and then archving them to tape, had me thinking. Recently I purchased the newest Tivo Series III HD 300 hour recorder for the wife to use in the master bedroom. She has a lot of shows she likes to watch and likes to watch them in bed after a long day of work. I still have my old Tivo Series II running after ten years of great uninterrupted service. I don't use it to record anymore as it is only standard definition. My recorder is a Verizon DVR in the main living room and I hooked up an external one terrabyte hard drive to it which gave me over a hundred hours of high definition recording. But, here is the problem. The thought of having to hook up and connect my old Hi-8 recoder deck to transfer anything from the Verizon DVR and then transferring from tape to the pc for use later just makes me tired thinking about it. With all the current hoopla about Netflix partnering up with Verizon and who knows what other service provider, who cares at this point. Somehow I foresee in the future where these big networks will get a clue and begin to build their own huge data centers to archive and store all their video and then connect the internet pipes and allow anyone to download a copy for fifty cents. I liken this to Apples iTunes service. Their ninety nine cent model for a tune I still cannot see subscribing to. If music and video were made more affordable and more convienant I would imagine the whole country and possibly the world might want to add it to their subscriptions. For now, we are just stumbling along and leaving the consumers with not much to digest for mobile entertainment and enjoyment. I for one would like to be able to download my favorite weekly show, CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, transfer it to my Android smartphone for playback when it's more convienant for me to watch. For now though I just have to hope that the show doesn't get interrupted by the servive provider and the dvr gets to record the full hour and a half show. Lately thought I cannot even find the time to watch the daily evening news that I have been recording let alone my favorite show.