Tag: Technology

My Week in Haiku

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

wrung-out dishcloth
hanging over the sink
fourth day of chemo

That’s how I felt yesterday. šŸ˜¦

Not sure if I can blame the pills, which I started taking Sunday morning, or if it was ā€œjust a headacheā€ such as I have now and then. Tuesday night I went to bed with one, which persisted until morning, giving me some queasy moments. At 4 am I prayed a desperate prayer for relief, which did come, thankfully. My headache eased up to bearable. Pain meds made me drowsy all morning, so I spent a good part of it napping in the recliner. Felt so much better in the afternoon.

sunshine after the storm a petrichor of gratitude

Sunday and Monday my oomph level was somewhere below sea level. At times like that, I read a lot. Now Iā€™ve started Lost Luggage by Samantha Tonge. (Is it true that in England airports send unclaimed luggage to an auction and anyone can buy them?)

Thankfully I feel back to normal this morning, so I trust this will be a more productive day. Iā€™ve already evicted some dust bunnies ā€“ returned them to the great outdoors where they can roam at will.

dust bunnies
gather in my corners
one more chapter

Tuesday morning I was having a serious problem with my Kobo e-reader when I tried to change the accountā€™s e-mail address. I messed with it for an hour or so, but couldnā€™t reconnect to our Wifi here. I took it over to my daughterā€™s place after school; it took my twelve-year-old grandson about five minutes to get me all set up again and my latest purchases downloaded. Of course. šŸ˜‰

Fingertip-to-Screen Issues

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning was KEYBOARD

My keyboard is usually quite reliable, but now and then it irritates me. One frequent fault is the tendency to reverse the order of letters in certain words. Know what I mean? I type in m-o-r-n-i-n-g — I know very well how to spell it — but on my screen it shows up as monring. As the letters pass through the circuits and into the brain of the thing letters get jumbled.

Had I been aware of this fault, I certainly wouldn’t have named my book Silver Morning Song. Half the time when I write this title, it comes out as Silver Monring. Very annoying! Mind you, I had a different computer when I published the book, so the fault must lie somewhere in the wires connecting this keyboard to the cranial nerves of the hard drive. Somewhere is another word, often showing up as soemwhere.

Not that I’m wishing to be a constant caviller, but this is vexing. I have to do a lot of checking up on this thing because it slips in the odd letter now and again as well. But when I ask some tech-smart person about this problem, they first get this blank look, then this odd sort of smile, then say, “Must be Operator Error.” As if I don’t know how to spell. Hmph!

What about your keyboard? Does it always obey commands, or is it a fractious thing, too?

This Week Chez Nous

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 7 Comments

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve been having a good week? The past couple of days haven’t been so great at our house, what with a pain in the arm as well as severe pain in the wallet and chaos in the office. Hopefully we’ll recover; my arm injected with the Covid booster (Moderna) on Monday, is already improved, but it was very sore yesterday. I felt light headed, listless, and had several long naps; hopefully the effects have worn off and I can resume normal life now.

I wasn’t hearing the latest news, but Bob was telling me that the Premier of Quebec just announced there will be a tax levied on residents who have declined to be immunized, since these folks are giving half the cases straining provincial hospitals now. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” I guess?

I cooked dinner for the residents at the Villa on Sunday, inviting two couples to join us and the residents. (For those of you who know folks here, they were Wendel & Heather and their four sons — Heather brought dessert & corn — and Ben & Lucille.) Usually when families are invited for Sunday dinner at the Villa, they bring some part of the meal, which is very helpful for the cook!

Monday we up-heaved the office some when I took my PC to the computer doctor in Outlook before going for my booster shot. Remember the old expression, “slow as molasses in January”? I’d turn it on and wait and wait! So it needs an upgrade, and the repair man is also fixing a few programs that don’t work. It will be great to have my mail G-mail account accessible again, but I may probably cry when I get his bill. I’m still whimpering over yesterday’s shell-out.

Yesterday, while I was taking life easy at home, Bob went to the city. Among other things, he got a replacement for the key I lost last week. Beware, everyone. These high-tech keys may be small things, but a replacement costs plenty — in the neighbourhood of $700 CDN!

Worth their weight in gold?

When he got home from the city a package had come in the mail: a mounting bracket for his monitor. Now he can adjust the height. However, to install this, he had to empty and remove a shelving unit that sat along the back of his desk, which means the office is in chaos this morning. (One used shelving unit for sale. What offers?) Chaos can actually be good in the long run, seeing how things never used can so easily get stored away and become part of the decor until you have to move them for some reason.

Our “severe cold spell” is past and we’re into a “severe” mild spell now, though I doubt the weatherman would ever call it that. The temp went above freezing yesterday; it’s -4 now at 10 am; the ice has melted off our windows. Out cats are acting rather squirrelly and are eager to go outside. Stepping outside now, it feels like spring — but we’re not deceived šŸ™‚

Small Delights

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

Good morning to you all. The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is the word FUMBLE. Well, I fumbled around for awhile this morning in the internet world, but have finally got RESULTS!

I have a web filter on my PC. At some point about three months back it decided it had some issues with G-MAIL. For the most part the issues were resolved without open conflict, but right about that time I changed the password on my main G-mail account. This threw the elves who are supposed to forward my main G-mail into confusion — a confusion I haven’t been able to sort out ever since. When I tried FIX ACCOUNT, I get a prompt saying “We cannot connect to your server.”

Thankfully I have a laptop that accepted the new password and got on with mail delivery, but not my PC. I got a “How to fix this” instruction from my web-filter company, but got nowhere. I still get mail in my second G-mail account — reserved for certain duties — but nothing in the main one. Why, oh why?? So I’ve been using my laptop almost exclusively for the past few months, since everything there works as it should.

Now I will admit how technically dim I am: Only this morning I messed around in Google and found out how to access my main G-mail account online. Delightful! (Yeah, I shoulda known this long ago. šŸ˜‰ ) Anyway, I read the mail in my main G-mail IN-BOX right here on my PC. Tra-la-la!

I notice Word Press has changed some things again — but at least I’ve re-discovered how to do colourful text. šŸ˜‰ I’ve been so neglectful of my blog this past while that I’ve decided that today I’m going to post a number of haiku, so I’ll start with this one — a senryu, really:

 techno-victory
she finally accesses
her message center

SMALL DEBTS

I owe — and I must pay! The Government of Canada has sent me two letters now (which would normally cost about $1.60 in stamps) to tell me that they’ve overpaid me $1.45 in OAP benefits and I must pay it back by cheque or postal money order or they will deduct the entire sum from my next month’s pension cheque. It comforts me to know that our government is consistently bureaucratic — if that’s the word for statistical fumbles.

Now a quick note about our weather: It’s COLD here! We’ve had a really nice spell this week. I think yesterday the temp was about -4 C first thing in the morning. Unseasonably mild for the middle of December. However, the air had a damp feel to it and the north wind was raw, so we knew change was coming. This morning it was -15. I think the temp is to be -25 on Christmas Day. Here’s another haiku on the matter:

snow angels
their childhood frozen
for a day

And Dec 25th is only — GASP! — ten days from today. In the city yesterday we picked up a nice gift for someone on our list In spite of all the determination to do better, resolutions we made in Christmases past, we still tend to leave gift buying for the last few weeks. šŸ˜¦

Have a great day everyone!

Book:Seniors and High-Tech

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

One day my husband brought home a book he thought I’d enjoy — and it did give me many chuckles, especially as I remembered our own days of learning how to operate this new-fangled device. If you’re young and tech-savvy you can read it and sympathize with computer sales & support people who must patiently explain what a byte is, how to control a mouse, or how far you should back up when your computer gives the order.

My Senior Moments Have Gone High-Tech
Ā© 2016 by Karen Oā€™Conner,
published by Harvest House Publishers in Eugene Oregon

My Senior Moments Have Gone High-Tech by [Karen O'Connor]

Consists mainly of anecdotes about golden oldies who take up using a computer in their senior years, these amusing tidbits have been gathered from learners, teachers, and fixers. As well as humor, the writer offers hope for those who feel their offspring are tossing them into the sea of technology without a life jacket.

Like the woman who set her mouse on the floor, thinking it should work like her sewing machine foot pedal. Or the irate fellow who ordered tech support to come out and see why his printer wasnā€™t working. The company rep dutifully showed up, checking things out, and asked how long the printer had been unplugged.

This reminds me of my first attempt at using our computer. Bob had purchased one three weeks previously, so he and our daughter (who worked at a computer store) were babbling in this strange language. Which made me all the more determined not to touch the thing. However, weā€™d been on a Family Reunion trip to Boston and I wanted to write up a long letter to his mother plus several penpals. Rather than hand-write all those pages, I typed it into the computer.

Starting with ā€œDear Mom, We had this great trip to Massachusettsā€¦ā€ I went on for eight pages giving her all the details. Then I hit PRINT. Nothing happened. I hit it again. Nothing happened. After the third try I called our daughter at work. She asked, ā€œAre you sure itā€™s plugged in?ā€

I checked. It wasnā€™t. I plugged it in. Out came the eight pages. Then another eight. I couldnā€™t stop the thing! I unplugged it again, then plugged it back in. Out came another eight. Iā€™m thankful my two penpals didnā€™t seem to mind an eight-page letter that started with ā€œDear Mom,ā€ accompanied by a handwritten note of explanation on top. And when hubby got home, he showed me how to cancel a PRINT order. šŸ™‚

My husband is talking now of updating our cell phones. Gulp! I still mourn the obsolescence of my old cell phone. It worked so well; to answer a call, you just flipped open the lid.

Anyway, I think this book would be a great Christmas gift for the senior on your list.