All posts by Jim Trottier

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Geeky Christmas Things

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For the Christmas season, I’ve been playing with my options for using the living room TV for background entertainment when we don’t want to watch actual TV.  Here’s what I’ve settling on using.  Since I have a laptop (Windows 7) connected to the TV (LG 55″) via HDMI, I set it to having the TV as its main display.  I use Google Plus Images to download my albums “Christmas 2008”, 2009, etc., up to 2013.  This is extremely easy on G+, but next to impossible on Flickr.  Once those were downloaded, I renamed each photo (an entire folder at a time) to “Christmas 2013 – Photo xxx” (it auto-numbers them).  Then I created an executable slideshow using Slide Show Builder in FastStone Image Viewer, adding all of the photos from each year, set the transitions, and added caption text to the bottom left corner, which I set to include the photo’s filename and timestamp.  I set each photo for 15 seconds, and built the exe file.  There were a total of just over 600 photos.  I can optionally add music to the slideshow as well, but I left this out, since I prefer to just play an Amazon Music Station or my own music instead.  This turned out really nice.  Amazon has several different “Christmas” channels to choose from, as well as many other channels for whatever type of music I’m in the mood for, or I can easily play any of my own music, which Amazon has stored for me.  Amazon with hold up to 200,000 songs, I believe, which is certainly plenty for me.  And with Amazon Prime, all of the free music and stations is just a bonus.

I must say, it did take most of this month’s spare time (when I wasn’t playing Ingress) to find the best options for each of these tasks.  For example, I had no easy way of controlling the mouse and starting the music and slideshow without standing 6 inches from the TV until I found a decent “air remote” to use.  I needed an easy way to start and stop the slideshow and music on the computer in the living room. Eventually I found this. It has some great reviews and sounded perfect, so I went with it. It works great, exactly what I needed.

I also tried to find all my Christmas photos on Flickr and download them, which is ridiculously difficult to do, for some reason.  I tried using DisplayFusion first to simply randomly show Christmas photos straight from the web (using either G+ photos or Flickr), but as it turns out, there’s a limit to how many photos you can stream in an hour.  If I set it to only switch photos every minute, it works ok, but the other problem (with both photo services) is they both only seem to go back a couple hundred photos or so in my photostream.  This results in only being able to view recent photos, pretty much showing only this year’s photos and a few of last year’s.  This is when I decided to do everything local and just download exactly which photos I wanted to display.

So there you have it, my geeky Christmas slideshow.  We’re enjoying all of the old memories now, and look forward to this year’s festivities, which are starting today.  Now on with the holidaze!

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What Nerve

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Sandy saw an Orthopedic doctor today this afternoon.  After some discussion about her symptoms and condition, he scheduled an MRI.  He’s thinking it is possibly a pinched nerve.  They couldn’t schedule it until Friday, Dec. 26th, due to the holiday, so she’s going to have to suffer through Christmas like this, at the very least.  By Monday or Tuesday of next week hopefully they’ll know something and be able to treat her.

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Sandy’s in the ER

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Sandy’s in the ER this morning. Woke up and could hardly walk. Right leg problem. Getting ultrasound right now.

Update – Ultrasound found no blood clots. Going for x-rays now to check right hip.

Update 2 – X-rays showed no changes since last time. She’s being released and has to follow up with a Orthopedic doctor. Frustrating.

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New Photos Dropdown Menu

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The “Photos” option at the top menu of my website is now a dropdown menu.  You can use it to go to my Flickr or G+ photostreams or albums.  I seriously can’t make up my mind on which one to go with permanently.  They both have their own individual advantages and strengths, and features that the other can’t do, so I really hate to give up either one.  I’m backing up to both, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep them relatively organized.  Things may be published on one and not the other at times, so that’s why I am adding options.  Besides, you’re gonna need more to look at while you’re waiting between the long gaps between my posts!  (Sorry, I’m working on that too!)

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Software scams, Baitware, Phishing…

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It seems like nearly EVERYTHING you install these days comes with a catch.  You need to be careful not to do an “Automatic” or “Full” install of anything, because they means “go ahead, install everything”, or “go ahead and install whatever you want”, and that will almost always get you in trouble.  Even totally legitimate applications and the big-name software makers will do this now, which makes it very annoying all the way around, and actually ends up getting me more side work….Cleaning up users’ PCs when they slow way down or start getting uncontrollable popups.  This is not a good thing.  Sure, I could always use the work, but I’d rather not have to clean up after these program vomit their garbage all over a customer’s hard drive.  Users have enough problems without adding all this mess, and it only causes them more frustration, sometimes ending with them hating Windows or their computer manufacturer for giving them all of these headaches. Make sure to get a file recovery software to keep all your documents safe.

If you’re careful though, with each and every install and mouse click, you can minimize your chances of having these problems.  It’s the same with the web and junk e-mail.  Be careful what you click one and don’t believe everything you read.  Scams are everywhere.  Anything that ever makes someone a little profit is exploited as much as possible.

Make sure you have an antivirus installed.  But even if you do, these days that’s not enough.  Malware is not considered a virus, so clicking something bad on the web or simply visiting a bad website will often result in malware being installed on your PC.  You need to either run a malware scanner regularly or install one that constantly monitors your PC and catches them immediately.  The latter is usually only available as a paid service, however, usually as a “pro” or “advanced” version of a standard malware scanner.  Keep in mind that all of these, as well, are also used to scam users.  Some malware and viruses appear as popup notices explaining that you’re PC is infected with many bad malware programs or viruses and offer to fix it for you, sometimes for a fee.  This usually results in an even worse infection on your PC, or nothing at all, as they are usually only there to inject themselves deeper into your system, or worse yet, to scam you out of your credit card information, giving you nothing in return as they sell your information to make their money.

Personally, I use Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Antimalware.  As of Windows 8, Security Essentials is built in, which is a great step forward.  Many will insist this is only “basic” protection and users need a much better application, or suite, to protect them…usually for a price, of course.  This may very well be.  Just be careful and make absolutely sure you’re choosing a legitimate solution and not just another elaborate scam.  As I said, those are what I use, and I rarely have issues.  They’re both free, though Malwarebytes does have a “pro” version that monitors your PC live just like an antivirus program, and supposedly catches malware before it infects your PC.  I haven’t tried it though, so I can’t say how effective it is or isn’t.

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Mayhem at it’s finiest…er funniest

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Minions of Anarchy

Jay sent me this image recently, and with Sons of Anarchy finally over now, I thought I’d post it here (click it-or here-for the full-sized image).  This was one of my favorite TV shows of all time, no doubt.  Right up there with the Sopranos.  In case you never watched it, it has nothing to do with minions or Hostess Twinkies… It’s about a gang of outlaw bikers that run guns in California.  It was created by Kurt Sutter, who is now married to Katie Sagal.  There are 7 Seasons of the show, and it all wraps up with a very awesome final episode, which just aired this week.

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The “All-in-one”

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I like to write.  Next to programming & gadgets, writing is one of the main things on my generic “to do” for life.  Whether it’s step-by-step procedures at work or just writing in general.  So, for the record, there is an ongoing journal I’ve been writing for many years, as it occurs to me.  It’s a diary, I guess you’d call it.  I prefer “Life Journal” myself.  I’ve tried to include all of the old memories I could remember, which, in itself, has taken a long long time, as things have occurred to me, or as I’ve recalled them as a result of other things happening in my life.  This document contains very personal feelings and details of mine, so it won’t be published any time soon, but I would really like it to be published “eventually”, if you know what I mean.  I have included, at times, many of my blog entries and other things posted on the web, so it’s also sort of a “complete story”, of sorts.

My wife knows where this document is, what it contains, and how to access it, so maybe someone else technical enough can assist her with bringing it to the next level and getting it out there when the time comes.  I don’t know if that’s just posting it on the web or actually “publishing” it somehow, I’d just like others to know everything I’ve learned and experienced so maybe, even after I’m gone, I can still help someone somehow.  I’m not going anywhere, don’t take this post the wrong way.  There’s much left for me to do here.  I’m just sayin’, with this post, that it’s there, so someone can remind whomever is going to be responsible for “closing out the books” when that time comes.  Now back to the show…
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Christmas Downtown

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Kevin, Socks and I walked downtown one day last weekend on the day of the annual tree lighting and the storefront decorations contest.  We went earlier than all the festivities though, just to get a good dog walk in while there weren’t crowds yet.  It was fun, and we took a bunch of photos of all the storefronts.

During our winter walks, Socks can get a little cold, so he’ll sometimes walk on 3 legs, allowing one to rest a little or warm up a bit, before using it again (that’s my theory anyway).  So he was doing this, and a car stops in the middle of the street after we crossed it, and a lady yells out that the salt is hurting my dog’s feet!  She said “you need to clean off his feet!”  When we ignored her and kept walking, she jumps out of the car and walks toward us, angry, and says the same thing again.  When she finally got real close to us, she reaches for Socks and says “give him to me, I’ll do it!”  I picked up Socks right away, and said “No, you’re not touching my dog!”  She said “let me clean off his feet, or YOU clean them off!”  I said “he’s fine, and you’re not touching him!”  She said “If you don’t clean off his feet right now, I’m calling the police!”  I said, “you go ahead and call the police, but you’re not touching my dog.”  We continued walking and Socks was fine.  I knew, if she had touched him, or even tried to, he would have certainly bit her (or me, on accident, in the commotion) so I wasn’t about to let that happen.  She stormed back to her car and said “I’m calling them anyway!”  I heard her say “Sheesh, stupid people!” as well, as she walked back to her car, which was stopped in the middle of the street.Socks Coat

Whether she called them or not, I don’t know.  Sure, maybe she was just concerned about him, how he was walking on 3 feet and we seemed to be ignoring him, I get that.  But to us it was just such a startling encounter, she came off as way to demanding and pretty irate.  And she has no idea what our dog’s habits are, how he walks normally or anything, she just seemed to assume we were abusing him.  We finished our walk and Socks warmed up just fine in the car ride home.  Sandy picked up a neat Winter coat for him a few days later though.  Won’t help his paws from freezing much, but it’s nice and snug like a thunder blanket, and he seems to like it.  It should at least keep him a little warmer on our walks.

 

Halloween, Photography, Thanksgiving

New photo albums added

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Ok, getting caught up over my 5-day weekend!  Here’s some new photo albums–including THIS Thanksgiving!

Civil War Museum – Sandy’s photos from her recent visit with a client.

Halloween 2014

Haylie’s 5th Birthday

Snow Sculpting Championships 2014 – from nearly a year ago–this year’s is coming up at the end of January!  I’ll be there.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving 2014

That should about catch me up.  Keep in mind a few of those are pretty raw.  Since I dumped everything, very quickly, I didn’t pick and choose the best photos.  Yet.  I’ll get to it, I just need more time.  So for now, a few of those albums contain hundreds of photos.  Consider this a “behind the scenes” preview.  Many of those will disappear soon as I curate them.  Enjoy!

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Flickr or G+ Photos? The battle resumes

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So not only does Hans use Flickr, but The White House also does… Then again, The White House seems to be on EVERY social media platform, so I’ll take that with a grain of salt.  I left Flickr a while back when they were about to up their price for a paid subscription from $24.99 a year to $49.99 a year.  So I left my photos there, assuming it would revert to a “free” account, which was, at that time, limited to viewing the last 200 photos you uploaded (even though all the others were still on the site).

Well, somewhere along the line, they changed it completely.  The price is still the same, but it’s now simply “ad-free” for $49.99 a year, but no other limitations if you don’t pay anything!  You still get access to ALL of your photos, with a huge 1-terabyte space limit–the same limit whether you pay for ad-free or not.  So, with that in mind, and my photos still intact, I’m playing with Flickr again, seeing how much they’ve changed & improved, and comparing things with G+ photos, which I moved to almost exactly a year ago.

Since I’m also WAY behind on publishing most of my photos since that move as well, I’ve been updating my albums on Flickr with everything from the past year, and I’ll post those links here shortly.  Looking at my 1-terabyte limit, I’m currently at 7%, just to give you an idea of Flickr’s capacity.  On G+ I pay $9.99 a month for 1 Terabyte of storage (aka “Google Drive”), but this includes all of my photos as well as my documents and all of my backups.  I am at about 30% capacity on Google Drive, just as a comparison.

We’ll see where things go from here.  Stay tuned for some new albums shortly.  Or go right to my Flickr Albums to see what’s there already.

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A week with a Nissan Versa Note

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Nissan Versa NoteNo, it’s not a new cell phone. It’s the rental car I got from enterprise last week. My car is in the shop recovering from the deer I hit last week, and the shop offers a 5-day free rental, so I ended up with this Nissan. I must say, it is definitely the oddest vehicle I have ever driven, hands-down. It’s a 2015 model, so it’s brand new, with only just over 3,000 miles on it, but everything about this car is just a little “off” from the norm, or from what I expect in a car. Let me make a list of my complaints to make it easy to follow:

1. First of all, you can’t put gas in it until you find the secret gas-door release lever. Took me a while, but I found it…Under the steering column!

2. On most full-corner turns, the radio station changes. Turns out my fingers tap the radio controls on the steering wheel “just right” when turning corners. Nice.

3. No matter what I did, I could not get my Android phone properly connected to bluetooth to play music through the stereo, and USB would never work for audio either. All I got every time I tried was a “Please check USB device” error on the screen. A friend of mine tried to use the USB jack to charge his iPhone and as soon as he plugged in the USB, HIS music began playing over the stereo just fine! So it works great on Apple devices, but doesn’t work on Android. Are you sure this car isn’t a year 2000 model?? Come on, it’s 2015!

4. The windows kept fogging up on me all week… I couldn’t figure this out until the last day I had the car. In frustration I pulled over on the side of the road, put it in park, and looked REALLY hard for something I knew had to be there: Something to switch between recirculating inside air–which it HAD to be in for it to always fog up like it was doing–and feeding in fresh air. The symbols for these options were dead center on the dash, near the bottom, inset into the surface. But they weren’t buttons, and there was no lever there. When I got desperate and finally crawled down and looked UP at the underside of the dash, there it was–a level that flipped left or right–one way was recirculate, the other was fresh air. I flipped that baby to fresh air, and viola! The windows began to clear up!

5. It takes FOREVER to warm up the cabin in this car, especially just sitting in the driveway in the morning. Driving it doesn’t make it warm up much faster either though. Must be a “green” thing.

6. Every single time you start the car, the AC comes on. Whether it was off when you stopped the car last or not, it ALWAYS comes on when you start the car. No idea why. I didn’t find a setting anywhere to keep this off. Every day was in the 20’s the week I had it, so I certainly never needed the AC at all.

7. The gas guage goes from 0 to 1 – 0 is empty, 1 is full. What happened to E to F?? Does EVERYTHING have to be digital these days?? It either HAS gas (1) or it doesn’t (0). At least there’s still a “1/2” in the middle… though I’m surprised this doesn’t say “0.5”!

Personally, I’m thinking the car turns the AC on just to burn more fuel. The MILEAGE it gets seems to be pretty awesome–which is the only GOOD thing I really have to say about it, so in sticking with the theme, there’d have to be SOMETHING wrong with it getting this kind of mileage…

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Oh Deer!

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On my way home from work tonight I hit a deer on Sheridan Road in Winthrop Harbor.  Huge one ran out onto the highway right in front of me and I never saw him coming.  Car might be totaled.  After the traffic behind me came to a screeching halt, I tried to get out of my car in the middle of the street with the deer laid flat out on the highway, and suddenly he jumps up on hit feet again, shakes it off, and heads back into the woods!  I guess I only stunned him!  I’m fine, no injuries, just a really messed up car.  It isn’t driveable, it lost a lot of fluids and the fender is pushed up to the tire on the passenger’s side.  The passenger-side headlight area is totally destroyed and the electrical system is freaking out with everything flickering on and off.

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Aunt Blanche

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Blanche Fifer - croppedI found out at Beth & Tom’s annual Fish Fry this weekend that our Aunt Blanche passed away recently!  We knew she wasn’t doing well the past few years, but it’s still very sad to find out she passed away.  But we found out too late to even send our condolences.  😦

Blanche was my mom’s sister.  When I grew up, she lived in Waukesha, Wisconsin, just outside of Milwaukee.  Her husband was Loren, and they had three children: Bruce, Larry and Brenda.  Larry is about my age, Bruce is older.  I remember our family taking frequent vacations and weekend trips to Waukesha and we’d stay at Blanche and Loren’s house.  We’d also always attend the annual Smith Family Reunions with them as I grew up.  It was always a great time, and I remember them fondly.

From what I can recall, Blanche was one of four sisters.  Here’s a photo of Blanche taken at my sister Penny’s house just before Christmas of 2000. It was Betty, Charlene, Blanche and Donna (my mother).  I believe they grew up in Modesto, California, daughters of Joe Smith, owner of the Little Buckaroo Ranch, which was located at 2419 Kansas Avenue, Modesto, California.  Think I memorized that address?  Yeah, right.  Nah, I found this photo of my mom and dad.

Sandy was able to find her obituary on the web though, so here it is:

Blanche (Smith) Fifer was born March 12, 1936, in Mason City to Joseph Smith and Glennie Looker Smith. She attended school in Kenosha, Wis. as well as Newton and graduated from Modesto High School in Modesto, Calif. in 1954. Blanche married Loren D. Fifer on Feb. 26, 1954, in Modesto. She was a retired bookkeeper, having worked mostly in petroleum related businesses in Wisconsin. She and her husband made many job related moves to various states. However, Wisconsin was their home for 36 years, 31 of those spent in Waukesha. She died Aug. 17, 2014. Blanche maintained as normal of a life as possible for many years after being diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis and will be deeply missed.

Lastly, here’s an album of all of the photos I could find of, and related to, Blanche Fifer.  May she rest in peace.

Health & Fitness

July? What’s that??

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Holy crap, July just flew by! What the heck was that?! I’ll sum things up: I called Karen, my sister who lives in Florida, just to catch up. Loretta asked Sandy to have me call her. She was very shocked, but said it made her day. And it was, in fact, her birthday that day! Of all the days to call, I unknowingly chose her birthday. That was interesting. After our conversation, I started writing a long letter to her, catching her up on me, my family and old memories. That took awhile to write, but I got it done and even included dozens of old photos, culled from several of my dad’s old photo collections, which I had scanned and posted online. Unfortunately, Karen doesn’t have Internet or a computer, so I had to go “old school” and copy & paste into my Evernote letter. It worked out well, but barely fit into a business envelope! I added an extra stamp just to be sure it wouldn’t return. We’ll see if she likes it. Using Google Street View, I was even able to view the little house she lives in with her friend.

Kevin and I spent a day at the Milwaukee Art Museum in July. That was very fun, and we had a good time. It’s great how they change the exhibits around frequently so there’s always something new to see. Chester and I went to Oshkosh for an Ingress Resistance BBQ as well. Since it was a two hour drive, we made a day of it, leaving Kenosha in the morning and spending the afternoon and evening hacking all the uniques we could find and topping it off with some great food and great people! Ah, smurfs…

I’ve been walking my ass off. Literally. I’ve been taking 2 walks a day, most days, walking a minimum of 1 mile each time, in an effort to lose weight. I guess, since I refuse to totally give up snacking and the food I love, it’s a very slow process, but I’m seeing progress. I really don’t think I could have done it this long without the help of Ingress and Runtastic. Ingress has given me a reason to walk, as often as possible, in an effort to support our lil blue worldwide “smurf” team in an effort to save the world from the evil toads (the green team). I walk to as many portals as I can these days, keeping Runtastic running at the same time, which tracks my walks and provides tons of data and statistics as well as medals, very much like Ingress does. The combination of both apps on my phone has motivated me quite a bit.

Socks is now addicted to walking as well. When I walk in the evenings or on weekends, he’s with me. He needs to lose weight as well, according to the vet, so we’re both working on it. At home now, each evening around the same time, he automatically starts getting excited. On days I’m not going for an evening walk, I have to calm him down and try to get him to understand it’s not going to happen this time. He eventually just gives up, but it’s frustrating to watch him work himself into a frenzy when nothing is going to happen. Seems like such a let-down. He never seems to be angry about not going though, maybe just a little disappointed.

Work has been pretty shaky. We’ve gone to 4-day work weeks twice already this year, each time lasting several weeks. I made up the extra day by using vacation time, but now I’m left without days for an actual vacation. Kinda depressing. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to the big, double, Amazon warehouse they’re building in Kenosha! They’ll be starting to take applications very soon I hear, so who knows.