Maggie's Farm

I've given lots of discs as presents over the years, and there's no question having a customized label adds to the enjoyment.  And especially when it's a kid and you've got their name right there on the disc in big bright neon lights fonts.  And if they're discs of your home movies, how classy would it be to have small pics from the various vacations and birthdays printed on the disc?

If you've ever tried the stick-on labels, you know what a nightmare they are to work with.  Get off by the tiniest bit while sticking it on and you're burning a new disc and printing a new label for Round 2.

And that 'LightScribe' routine, where it etches the text on the top of the disc, is seriously ridiculous.  Like a lot of people, I got suckered into it — although I will admit that if you hold up the disc just so, and catch the light just right, you actually can read what's etched on the disc — kind of.

So what's the answer?  Well, now that I've got you on the edge of your seat with this riveting question, you'll just have to...

It's got the big, ponderous name of 'Scheduled Tasks', but I prefer the term 'Windows Alarm Clock'.  As so often happens with the built-in Windows tools, 95% of a program's function might be completely worthless, but that last five percent...

Got a doctor's appointment a month down the road?  Want to make sure you catch that TV special in a few weeks?  Just can't forget to make that important phone call bright and early next Monday morning?

Let the Windows Alarm Clock help!

This is a weekly Saturday morning feature that will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
 

Lesson 16: DOS

 
This is the last lesson of this series.

 
Oh, the things we've learned on our journey!

We learned how to professionally back up our system.

We learned how to make a really neat custom links page for our browser.

We learned all about hardware and software and cool tools and a whole buncha stuff!

And, if all that wasn't enough, we then learned about such cutting-edge techniques as streaming video.  As budding computer experts, we're ready to go!
 

So why, in Heaven's name, is the wise and kindly Doc Murky bringing up DOS, of all things?  What possible use on God's Green Earth could antiquated old DOS have in today's modern hyperdigital world, we plaintively asked.
 

What use, indeed?, he asked back.

This is a weekly Saturday morning feature that will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
 

Lesson 15: Streaming Video

This video's been around for a while, but it illustrates the point well.
 

Admittedly, Rosie O'Donnell has made a real horse's patoot out of herself at times over the past few years.  As a mild example, she claimed on TV that the collapse of the buildings on 9/11 must have been a government conspiracy because "fire can't melt steel" — casually forgetting for the moment that fire is what makes steel in the first place.

But how do you compare the silly statements Rosie O'Donnell makes against others? By what standard do you measure "asinine" against "jackass"?

Finally, someone's put together a formula that works:
 

 
A clumsy and amateurish job, to be sure, but somebody had a great idea and went for it.

Want to be next?

This is, IMHO, Windows' best trick and the biggest time-saver of the bunch.  In short, it makes it easy to load a file into a program that it's not normally associated with.

A quick example would be a Notepad document you want to spell-check.  Notepad doesn't have a built-in spell-checker, so the usual routine would be to:

• Laboriously fire up a program with a spell-checker like MS Word
• Painstakingly open the load requester
• Achingly browse to the Notepad document
• Tiresomely load the file
• Troublesomely spell-check the document
• Backbreakingly save the file
• Exhaustedly close the program

But with the SendTo feature:

• Simply click on file's icon with the right mouse button and 'send' it to MS Word
• Simply spell-check the document and that's it!

For more of this unbiased, impartial review of the unbelievably fantastic SendTo feature, please...

This is a weekly Saturday morning feature that will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
 

Lesson 14: Video

 
Ah, video.

If you knew what I knew about video, you'd run screaming into the night.  The very word should cause you to tremble.  What's that?  Your Windows is corrupt and reboots itself every five minutes?  Big deal!  Your browser freezes up every 38 seconds?  No problem!  Your hard drive just caught on fire and burned down half the house?  That's the easiest one to fix yet!

But video.

Video is what separates the wheat from the woods, the chaff from the sliced kittens, the bear from the pope poop.

Video.

Video is where the foot meets the rubber, the tire meets the floorboard and the pedal meets the road.  It's what separates the fancy from the dancy, the hoity from the toity, the willy from the nilly.  It's how you tell the kettle from the heat, the pot from the fire, the brisket from the biscuit from the basket.  It's what—
 

For more unbelievably inane ramblings as I desperately try to avoid writing about this horrid subject of which I, personally, would never partake, please...

This is a weekly Saturday morning feature that will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
 

Lesson 13: Audio 

 
To be completely honest, it wasn't your idea to write the song that united the world.
 

Your new bride, a recent graduate from Dr. Mercury's Computer School For Underprivileged Busty Blondes, was the one who suggested it.  She walked into the room, threw her arms around you and gushed, "You're so wonderful! You should write a song that will bring peace to the entire world!"

And that's exactly what happened.

Personally, you thought the melody line was a bit simplistic, but people seemed to adore it, and it somehow bridged the gap between Western and Eastern cultures.  The words, too, seemed a bit lightweight, but it turned out that by sheer good fortune you used a number of words and phrases common to multiple languages, so even though the exact message couldn't be conveyed to the world's people, there was still something there that touched the soul of everyone.

And the song's effects were wonderful to see.  Obama and McCain decided on a joint presidency.  George Bush, Nancy Pelosi and Ron Paul had a group hug and broke into tears.  Al-Queda threw down its arms and opened a Starbucks franchise in Seattle.  Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards reunited.  Britney Spears' heretofore unknown younger sister, Adrianne, knocked on your bedroom door and—

And that's when the loud barking dog snapped you out of your daydream.
 

Next time, instead of fantasizing about it, I think you'd better just...

Well, that was timely.

No sooner do I put the finishing touches on what I believe is the best darn-tootin' guide in the Central Galaxy on how to start a WordPress blog site when Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit links to this:

Did Google use its network of online services to silence critics of Barack Obama? That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.

In short, the Obamaniacs started clicking on the "Please report this site as filthy and disgusting" button at the top of the page and got the anti-Obama sites dumped into the 'Spam' category. What makes it messy is that the program automatically freezes a site when it gets a certain number of complaints, but it can't tell the difference between a fake complaint and a real one. All it's seeing is the 'Complaints' button being pressed. Heck, I could set up a 'macro' program to press it twice a second from now until the end of eternity — which is probably what the Obamaniacs did.

And where are these stalwart bloggers fleeing to?

"As bloggers, it is a good thing we still have choices, and I have exercised my choice to leave Blogger and establish a new home at WordPress.”

As I said, timely.

If you know someone in a similar situation, or have ever wanted to get a blog site going yourself, WordPress is the answer and Easy-Blogsite will get you there in style. Frank, my 82-year-old neighbor, did the guide last weekend and had a streaming video on his home page an hour after he installed WordPress. It's hard to get much cooler than that.
 

For more dirt on these "instant blog" companies, you're welcome to...

Pic: average student at Dr. Mercury's Computer Bed & Breakfast School For Wanton Women, blatantly stolen from Theo who had a much better picture than I did for last Saturday's computer lesson — that rat!

In the comments to Saturday's lesson on images, a couple of doods mentioned the free GIMP program. From what I can tell, GIMP stands for "Gastro-Intestinal Monetary Paralysis", or the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you see the $649 price tag for Photoshop.

Actually, it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, with GNU being the open-source UNIX-like operating system developed back in the 80's. It and SourceForge have produced a number of excellent free programs over the years and, of the sixty-odd free video programs I have on my own site, probably half of them are GNU or SourceForge.

Bottom Line: While a little odd, GIMP is an excellent graphics program and does all the 'trick' things, like smudging and freehand selection, that big bad Photoshop does. Download it here. Click on 'Downloads' then grab just the program, don't bother with the 'Installer'. Don't panic when it takes forever to run the first time.

On the other hand, you'll probably have a heart attack the first time it opens, so perhaps you'd better take a sec and...

This is a weekly Saturday morning feature that will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
 

Lesson 12: Images

 
You're a real blogger. And you know just what I mean.

A real blogger works only in real-time. His thoughts come to him in a blaze of profound insight that his flying fingers desperately try to keep pace with. If a mixtake is made, so what! Your readers know what you're really trying to say.

Because that's where the honestly lies. That's how they know they can trust you. Because if you went back and corrected every little mixtake and tidied up sentences and made everything 'just so', you'd be no better than the next bought-and-paid-for journalist. Your very integrity rides on your willingness to show the world who you really are, simple mixtakes and all.

Until today.

Today, that integrity was seriously tested when you realized what you had done mere seconds later, yet, because of the blogger's code, you were unable to touch a thing.

And the horrific results are just now starting to drift in.

How unfair, you think to yourself as the screen-grab from your site is spread throughout the blogsosphere and you become a laughingstock in the eyes of the world. Everybody does it with their vacation pictures! You remember watching slide shows as a kid of the family vacation and there was always one that slipped in!  These things happen!  It's just not fair!

No, it's not, my friend.

Oh, if only you'd thought to take that night school course in blogmastering. If only you'd thought to be a little more careful when adding pictures to the site. And if only you'd thought to...

A quick update on Firefox v3.0:

Well, hum.

I had already downloaded the new Firefox v3.0 and was preparing to install it and write a quick review when the bad news started drifting in. First, some guy on Ace's site had a number of 'fixes' to un-do some of the damage done, then it was Boingboing, then Glenn over at Instapundit linked to some guy's horror story.

So, without belaboring the issue, it seems fairly apparent that the best advice would be to wait until the next release and then gauge it afresh.

If you click on a link and a second browser window pops open and it's way too small, do the following:

• Click on a link to open the second browser
   
• Swing back to this browser and close it, along with any others except the link browser
   
• Grab the mouse and manually re-size it until it's almost full-screen size

Close the browser and from then on any link (or Desktop icon) should open in almost full-screen size.  This trick also works with the Windows Search window.

This is a weekly Saturday morning feature that will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert.  More info here.
 

Lesson 11: Troubleshooting

 
Temper, temper!

You work to keep your emotions under control when what you really want to do is smash your fist on the keyboard.  Why now, you think to yourself.  Why me?  You wonder what wrathful computer gods you ticked off to merit such a fate.

Some very angry ones, it would appear.

Well, you're not going to let this little snag stop a tough, gritty computer user like yourself, no sir!  You knuckle down, grab the bull by the horns and head over to Google.  You search down the problem and, with your body bathed in nervous sweat, edit the haunting and enigmatic Registry and live to tell the tale.

The computer works!
 

A sense of exultation sweeps through you as you realize you'll make your deadline.  It's money in the bank!  You breathe a deep sigh of relief and look out at a glorious sunset.  You hear birds twittering in the trees and the sound of a gentle breeze.  The world is calm again.

You think back to that day years ago, the day you stopped being scared of fixing the computer.  The day you decided to give it your best shot.  The day you went from being subservient to the computer, to being its new master.  The day you decided to...

To be truthful, you're unbelievably embarrassed by the whole sad situation.

Oh, you didn't mean to end up this way. The shame and humiliation you've recently experienced certainly came unexpectedly. "It's all that dang Internet's fault," you think to yourself as you prepare to sneak out to the grocery store under cover of darkness. First it was on Fark, then Drudge, now CNN.com.

You'd be the first to agree that national humiliation isn't for just anyone.

You think back to what led to your present shameful condition. A little laziness here, a little procrastination there, and, the next thing you knew, your friend's calling to tell you they're talking about you on the local radio station. Apparently, someone saw that brief comment you left on Maggie's and the deejay was urging his listeners to set aside disbelief and see it for themselves.

From there it spread like wildfire.

At the moment, you're trying to decide if the $5,000 Ripley's is offering for the rights to include you in their 'Believe It Or Not!' exhibition