Chatterbox 4th Quarter

[Anonymous]

Mmmmmm.........Chicken Halves.

[zardoz]

Mookie

Another Ranger Rick helpful hint!

Are you sure it's not a hint from Red Green?

[tree68]

There - 476 chicken halves seasoned so they'll be ready for barbequeing on Sunday.  Tomorrow it's bacon, macaroni, and eggs (hardboiled).

Tomorrow is also our fire prevention program at the elementary school.  Better make sure my uniform is up to snuff...   And my presentations (I do both the 4th and 5th grade programs).

Ever onward!

[JoeKoh]

evening

busy day at work.Ns was switching cars uptown. helped Matt finish up his book report. tomorrow is Friday. need a trainwatching fix this weekend.

stay safe

Joe

[Mookie]

Pile of blankets/fans/sweats/shorts/boots/sandals/space heater/window open/windows closed/

Getting hard to walk around up here.  41 to 80 to 50 to..... degrees.  Too windy to fish - properly.  Might try improperly.  

Got a great gadget from UPS today.  (Had to tussle with neighbors, since they order constantly and they were just sure it was for them!)  Anyway - a telescoping pole that is about 3 feet long.  Extends to about 17 feet for cleaning those pesky windows and fans in your cathedral ceilings that I don't have.  Blah.

Driver will use it - to push carp back into water off the rocks.  Carp have soft mouths and keep dropping off the hook before he can bank them.  The rocks below, while not all that far, are not for senior fishermen to be climbing around on.  So he can sit in his chair (that I adapted for him to have everything at his fingertips - except what he forgot at home - and use his extension with a soft pad on the end to push the fish back in the water.  Another Ranger Rick helpful hint!

[locomutt]

Hmmm. must have not looked at the calendar correctly yesterday.

Belated Anniversary wishes to Joe and Stacey, and to Cannonball and Shirl!!!

And for today, Happy Birthday to "Mudhen", (Pat) Mudchickens wife! Hope she has a Great one!

[Semper Vaporo]

blue streak 1

regarding computers & softwear.  My step son informs me that all microsoft support for XP & office 2003 will be terminated in April 2014.  Nuts.  Guess what I've got on one of my computers ? ?

 

Just because MS will cease to support a product does not mean it will suddenly cease to operate the way it always has.  XP and Office 2003 may still work just fine for you.  It depends on how you are using them as to whether you should be concerned.

 

If you only create your own Office files and never receive files from others, then there will be no problem.  If they work now, they will work in the next decade too.

 

If you never get a file from someone else then you have no reason to worry about getting malware via an Office file, even if there is some security hole in your no longer supported OS or Office versions.

 

You might receive an Office file from someone else using a newer version of Office and you will not be able to open it using your copy of Office.  This is already a problem because MS does not provide updates to older Office versions to open the files from newer versions.  But in new versions of Office they have traditionally offered a method of saving a file in an older format just so it can be shared to computers running older versions of Office.  It is something that the originator of the file has to deliberately select when saving the file.  (You have to contact the originator of the file and ask them to resave the file in the older format for you... Hopefully they are someone that you know and can plead your case to.)

 

 

If you access the Internet with the computer then you will have a risk of malware causing you problems.  If some fool finds a security hole in XP or Office 2003 and you happen upon the fool's product then you will have whatever problem the fool designed his product to do.

 

How do you happen upon the fool's product?  Downloading a program of unknown provenance is the primary way, either by deliberately clicking on a "download" button to get some program that you think you want or by clicking on a link in an e-mail that is a trick to download a program that you didn't know would come.  But you will get pronouncements that you are about to download a program just like you do now, so it would take a couple of deliberate steps for you to actually get the program into your computer.

 

Another way would be via web-surfing to a malware infected web-site.

 

Either way, if you keep your Anti-malware software up-to-date then malware should be detected and stopped, even if the operating system or Office has the security problem.  You do have the risk of being one of the 1st to stumble across some malware before the anti-malware companies get a chance to know about it and update their databases to detect it (known as a "Day Zero Attack")... but you and everybody else, regardless of the operating system or its update status, has that risk now.

 

 

Eventually, as software evolves, you might surf to a web site that requires you to have some feature in the browser, but you may not be able to install a browser with that feature because it cannot work in your operating system, so you will be effectively locked out of ever accessing that site and/or using that feature.

 

 

[tree68]

Murray

Its still possible to find computers with Windows 7 on it..........

That's how it was when W7 first came out - local computer shops would sell you a machine with Vista...

Heck, I've still got Office 2000 running...  Who cares about tech support?  It's working just fine for me!  If there's a problem it's that the newest versions won't recognize files from the old versions.

Ms Mook - re:  Subway.  That's why, when asked, I say I'm from northern New York.  Especially for folks who live a fair distance from the Big Apple.  They just seem to assume that if someone is from New York, they're from the city.  I live far from the city.  In fact, I can be in Toronto or Ottawa (Canada) faster than I can get to NYC. 

Subway, pshaw.  I did eat there tonight, though...

[Anonymous]

blue streak 1

regarding computers & softwear.  My step son informs me that all microsoft support for XP & office 2003 will be terminated in April 2014.  Nuts.  Guess what I've got on one of my computers ? ?

Its still possible to find computers with Windows 7 on it..........

[Mookie]

Tree - I am on Vista, too.  Windows 95 was still my favorite.

Driver had some lab work today.  We had a tornado hit about 15 miles south of Lincoln and the lab tech told him that she lives there and was home when it happened (no damage, but close).  She told the Driver that she went back to New York for a conference and told a gentleman at the conference that she lived about 15 miles outside Lincoln but worked in Lincoln.  He wanted to know if she took the subway to work.  

[blownout cylinder]

I'm mucking around with an old Atari for 8 bit music making, lol.

[blue streak 1]

regarding computers & softwear.  My step son informs me that all microsoft support for XP & office 2003 will be terminated in April 2014.  Nuts.  Guess what I've got on one of my computers ? ?

[Anonymous]

Murphy Siding

 I still get the surly attitude from tech support people who think I'm a dummy, but at least the voices are familiar and understandable.

"Dad!  What did you do to this thing?????"

 

[tree68]

I'm still running Vista on the home PC and the laptop.  The phone and tablet are Android.

It seems like we go through the same routine over and over.  Everybody gets used to a given operating system, and voila!, it's time for a new one.  I suspect that once they get all the bugs worked out of a given OS, they have time to build a new one.

And like I say, if there's a feature I really like, I can count on it disappearing in the next version...

I still do work in DOS and Basic...

Just got started on my railroad project for the winter - revising our daily "Rule of the Day" sheets.  Lots to do - researching the rules on each sheet to ensure they are correct, and digging out new rules to replace any that might be obsolete.  It'll take all winter.

[Murphy Siding]

     We have 3 sons, age 22, 18, and 15, therefore, I have a built-in support tech team that can help me with the computer and cell phone problems.  I still get the surly attitude from tech support people who think I'm a dummy, but at least the voices are familiar and understandable.

     This spring, we were at a family reunion in a campground.  As we were walking through a big open area, one of the kids found a cell phone someone had dropped.  It was a flip phone, on AT&T, and there were no phone numbers keyed into the contacts.  I figured it must belong to my 80 year old uncle Corky.  I was right.

[Anonymous]

Norm48327

I need a young kid to help me decipher the ins and outs of Windows 7 which I recently installed on my computer.

Norm...  Windows 7 is fairly easy to master...I have  Win 7 on my two desktop computers here at home.

[locomutt]

Johnny, Thanks for the input on Windows 8 O.S. that's what my new cell phone came with. Guess now I will have to spend extra bucks and get that book.

When we first got our computer back in 2003 I actually forget what O.S. it came with, but we did have "Word Perfect". Very shortly after purchase, we downloaded Windows XP office edition with "Word". That's what on it now.

"Word" is okay, but I wouldn't give you a dime for "Word Perfect"

Now, as to the cell phone; I think I have gotten it down to where I can actually make a call. [I hope I don't have to call 9-1-1 in a hurry!]

Joe, you can send Matt down if you want, just hope he can put up with an older gent that doesn't know that much about things like that.

Mookie, I'm with you on the APPlication thing, but it seems in this day and age, certain things just don't apply.....

[JoeKoh]

evening

ns was parking an autorack train in the siding when I left. Matt's homework has been checked. Time to get cleaned up. Walt I can send Matt down to help out.

stay safe

Joe

[Anonymous]

I bought a new Dell laptop about 3 months ago and it came with Windows 8.

While not having the start button there initially caused some challenges, its really not that hard to use.

With version 8.1 coming out soon, hopefully a lot of the Windows 8 drama can be put to rest.

 

 

[blownout cylinder]

No way am I going anywhere near windoze 8. ..uhuh.

[Deggesty]

You should (NOT) try Windows 8. I had to buy (the abridged version) of Windows 8 for Dummies, and even then I have run into things that the new system does that (in my opinion) it does not need to do. I was talking with daughter Ginny, and she showed me one or two things that make it easier to use.

Ricki's first word processor was WordPerfect, and I use that (the version I bought several years ago)--and consider Microsoft's word processor to be "Imperfect Word." A few days ago, in response to Jackie's request for some information, I started up the Word that is now on my computer--and the initial screen had all sorts of garbage (in my estimation) that I had to ignore and find my way to where I could create a document. Of course, if I send a document to almost anybody else, it has to be in Word, since Microsoft has sucked so many people into using its imperfect product.

As to a cell telephone, since I am not even half-way married to one as all too many people are, mine is quite simple--yet it has stuff on it that I have no use for--and I buy time at least once a year, paying thirty dollars for more time than I really need. It does come in handy for me when I am traveling, since I can make calls without having to look for a phone booth (does anybody remember those?). It was really handy when I was leaving Florence, S.C., last month. When I got out of Luanne Ussery's car at the ACL station (though Amtrak has built a much smaller building than the one I spent the night in in 1968), I failed to take my small, "overnight," bag out and did not realize my error until I was inside the station and saw that it was not sitting on top of my suitcase. Hoping that she did have her cell phone with her and had it on, I called her--and she was able to turn around and bring it to me before she got home.

[Mookie]

It is so nice to read fellow maybe-not-so-enlightened on phones and puters posters!!  It is such a love/hate relationship with my cell, IPad, puter and .  

Remember when an "app"lication applied to medicine or a job? At least I think that is what those little squares are named?  

 

[tree68]

Norm48327

I need a young kid to help me decipher the ins and outs of Windows 7 which I recently installed on my computer.

I usually find that when they put out an "upgrade" they must have researched the features I used the most, because they almost always take them out of the new version...

[Norm48327]

I need a young kid to help me decipher the ins and outs of Windows 7 which I recently installed on my computer.

[locomutt]

Well, there's an "Old Saying" about people that live in the Ohio River Valley; if you don't like the weather, wait about 10 minutes and it will change.

Albeit, it was raining yesterday, but the temps. were in the 60s & 70s. Today the temps. were only in the 50s. Yesterday I had on shorts, and a short sleeved t-shirt. Today, sweat pants, long sleeved shirt & socks!

(had to service the furnace and turn it on)

After several years of me trying to understand how to use a cell phone, the one that I had decided to "bite the dust"! So, I now have a new one, hopefully it won't take me that many years to figure out how to use it.

I believe the instructions said: "So simple a 5 year old can use it". I need to find that 5 year old and have he or she explain it to me......

[Mookie]

Joe!  You have all the trains!  Brother Carl!  Joe has the trains!

[JoeKoh]

evening

busy day at work.got yardwork done as well today.fall has arrived.NS had a loaded coal train wait then go,an empty coal train wait and go,tonka toys pass by then another loaded coal train was waiting when I left.Time to get cleaned up.

stay safe

Joe

[blownout cylinder]

Good Afternoon.

We had two big old thunderstorms come through last night. Left us more than 4" of rain and took out both my laptop AC adapter and my mixing board. Our surge protector protected itself nicely...according to Mr. Murphy. Not our Murphy...the other one.

Le Sigh.

[narig01]

At 12noon it was 69 deg f. It is nice out with the windows open. It is amazing what a blast of cold autumn air does for those exceedingly unbearably hot summer days.

Have fun everyone.

Thx IGN

[locomutt]

With apologies to Ed Ames ("My Cup Runneth Over....") My rain gauge runneth over...as I said in earlier post, it only goes to 6 inches, when the rain here quit yesterday the gauge was overflowing. I believe the official amount was 7.1 inches.

Randy, if that really was you that snagged a cloud on your way through this area; I believe that Several people are looking for you! Something about cancelling the St. James Art Show on Sun. In it's history, it's never been cancelled before.

Tree, hope you weren't libeled or slandered, and were able to keep the Customer Satisfied!

About 50 degrees here this morning, I had to put a lightweight jacket on to go out and get the paper. Guess I'm going to have to dig out the "warmer clothes"!