Net Free Zone

24 hours without internet access is the pits. Some monumental stuff up out there brought it about. I was totally impressed with my ISP. I rang twice to see what on earth was going on and twice the menu navigation was quick and I got HUMAN contact within a minute. Those humans were very helpful and very human...they were quite soothing because I was going mental! I was like a lost sheep...bills to pay, emails to send, facebooking to do...and maybe blogging. I was also going to look up Windows 7 because I got a new desk top at a BARGAIN price and was ready to go....What I did do was tidy all my old computer so my sister can have it and then tidy up my computer stuff so now I can find things...but oh boy, it's hard without he Net.... I did bake a lovely orange poppy seed cake, though!

Richard Herring

Fresh Air

He says people appear to work better if they can get fresh air.

Architects are having a conference about improving the quality of office air to help workers work...opening the window is a suggestion. Our new buildings at work do not have windows you can open!   We also have offices without a view to the outside and that is soooo depressing. I shall be glad to move soon to an office with a window to the outside...but it doesn't open and the air conditioning is appalling. It does not circulate anything. probably not connected. No one should be put into a work area without a view to the outside and without a window they can open. No wonder people get sick or go bonkers. It is largely overlooked that it is important for people to have control over their environment. That in itself lifts spirits and then people like to see what the world looks like. It does animals no good to be cooped up...why should it be good for us and what were they thinking?

Funi and Wang Wang

The pandas are coming! Tomorrow! Adelaide Now has a great gallery of pictures and we are excited. Adelaide has done a lot to grow bamboo and raise money for the upkeep of the pandas. Some people wonder why we are so excited but we are. Very Adelaide. We love animals and we like something like this. the Pandemonium events have been hugely popular and so many people have supported this. It'll be hard to get in and visit them once they are settled. Tomorrow Adelaide will celebrate their arrival and those schools and businesses which have been behind this can be proud of such a positive achievement. It's good to see people unite in such an amicable way but the organisation of all of this has to be applauded too.

Dual Booting

The more I think about it and experience it, the more I think dual booting is the go. It is just something which has happened this year and I have come to appreciate it. I  have also come to appreciate the different experiences different operating systems offer and then how different hardware can add to your life. My daughter is often on her iPod on the Net. When she can't be bothered getting out her laptop or she is travelling, then the iPod touch does everything she needs to do and she is a big computer user. I fancy what is now called a web PC. I am trying to find an excuse to buy one of those dinkie things. I think I'd use them for travelling, but I am wondering if I would really need one or could use one. You don't know until you have these things. I am not a pocket surfer. Hate it. With the dual booting I have choices and that is what it is about. My work MacBook dual boots Windows and MacIntosh with the default as MacIntosh. The Mac side runs to easily and efficiently in French, it's very visual, has some good gadgets which I use all the time but the down side is the Office suite which ought to be compatible with Windows office but I get data loss and annoying things. I always back up. Good habit! The photo and image stuff is also easy on the Mac side. Windows, though, offers a wealth of experiences which I like and gives me a chance to operate more broadly. The Mac doesn't always manage the media files and video files on web sites and it just doesn't have the range of programmes which run with it but it is much improved.  My other laptop now runs Ubuntu and Vista. What a piece of cake that was. Ubuntu is wonderfully uncomplicated and the screen is clean and lovely and the downloads and updates are a breeze and then it is well and truly MY laptop when I use Ubuntu without all the security interference of Windows. Ubuntu also has some neat little open source programmes which I use and like. So there is an operating system for every personality and every mood. The world needs to take note of that because cross platform capabilities increase your capacity to be engaged with technology and those who don't like one thing suddenly find themselves in an environment they can appreciate. No one likes change but others adapt rather quickly. They just absorb and absorb new ways of doing things and new experiences. Those people push the developers by showing them ideas of how thinks can be used. Windows is very popular because we all know it, but there are a lot of Mac and Linux users out there and the dual boot encourages me to be more adaptable and , more importantly, more adventurous. I have a system I am very used to and then I have a system to explore. It means I am willing to look around more to see what's available and what is possible. That means growth. That's good!!!

Relabelling Removable drive - Ubuntu

Easy when you know how! Didn't have to go to Terminal. I tried the disk Utility and could rename my flash drive from there. I tried altering permissions and obviously hadn't got that right. So I just reformatted the drive and there you go...a space comes up for you to rename/relabel the drive. Took 30 seconds!! So now I am a happy lady. Ubuntu 9.10 doesn't have such a choice of screen savers though so I couldn't find my favourite one form 9.04. I have settled for the snowflakes! The interface for choosing software is etter and there are some lovely photos fro the desktop if you want them. I also customised my theme so it's a bit easier on the eye.

Wubi

I have just installed a dual boot Windows Vista and Ubuntu 9.10 thanks to Wubi. This is my idea of a good time and a perfect computer. I am running Ubuntu now on my Dell Inspiron 1525. It took 30 mins because it is all automatic. Wubi just does it all for you and I have a lovely floral background (!) and a pretty nice theme but I confess it is not as nice as my chocolate theme under 9.04. On my to do list. Why dual boot? I get fed up with Vista. It's like dragging the whole world around. Ubuntu is wonderfully light and straight forward except for the daft thing I came across this morning where I cannot easily rename my newly acquired flash drive. I can follow all the Terminal stuff and will do that eventually if I have to. In terms of security , it's not such a bad thing. Maybe relabelling flash drives should not be so easy as a couple of clicks. So now I'll keep you posted on how I go. I confess the dual boot interface is not as cruisy as my MacBook dual boot which is visual. Ubuntu dual boot is text based and might put our visual users off. Ubuntu is like coming on holidays...I really like it and the world ought to be able to have choices these days. Choices are very this millennium

Cruisin' Ubuntu

I got a friend of mine to change to Ubuntu..in the way we'd all like to...dual boot with Windows. He mastered that whole thing quite quickly. I gave up on the dual boot but he has been more thorough and so it worked really well. I have a dedicated Ubuntu laptop and I haven't been on it in ages for all the reasons my life came up with...so here I am and it is grand. Just lovely. I came on here because my daughter had a flash drive which was playing up and it really was the spawn from hell  and would stop Windows and kill it. It was new a while ago and she had never said. Well...what a load of tripe. So I thought I'd try it on Ubuntu and this bolshie flashdrive is behaving itself perfectly. My problem now is how to rename it. That is not a click away in Ubuntu. Doesn't seem to be and I am looking for an easy fix. I have a non easy fix and will get around to it... but Ubuntu is choofing along just nicely and has now got me a nice little flash drive!

Garden Groans

I am not totally certain we are angry but we are certainly dismayed and put off. We slaved through the cooler weather to repair our gardens from the heat and drought. The impact had been devastating and we had been traumatised. But we worked long hours to repair the damage and tried to put in changes to help. What a joke. Two weeks of heat and then a 43 degree burning day with a dry wind and the gardens were trashed. So on my street, no one has been out to do anything and we are very responsible and reliable with our gardens. Bugger it! I have great tall weeds and that’s the thing...I have never had so many weeds. We have just left them. The lawns are patchy and need mowing but they’ll dry and we have curtailed our lawns to help with water supplies but even what we have is unmanageable. Build up the bricks and concrete and you built up the heat and dry. Our plants are dried out, our trees and shrubs have dropped leaves in the millions. So it is just a mess and we have thought... why? We did all that work to no avail, so unless someone can give us hope...Adelaide gardens will be left and you know...Adelaide gardens are the thing which help us all deal with stress and bring us a bit of pleasure. We love our gardens...some have gone the way of brick and concrete, but busy Bunnings and nurseries tell you just how much we love out gardens. It sucks, big time. I am still sitting here instead of mowing and sweeping. What’s the point? One more lot of heat and it is crisped.

Water!!

Dripper systems and hand-held hoses fitted with a trigger nozzle can be used for a maximum of 5 hours a week between the hours of 6-9am or 6-9pm on any day.

Good news!

Pourquoi pas moi (why not me?)

Airport Security

I flew to Melbourne today and was in the Dandenongs. Just so beautiful....but so close to where the traumatic bush fires had occurred and the people have recovered but still feel the pain. Certainly cooler than Adelaide! My first experience of electronic flying. Booked on line , got my boarding passes online. How streamlined was that? Then I realised there was no check whatsoever that I was who had booked. I could get on a plane and be on the passenger list but I could have sent any female in my place. No one would have known. To that extent it showed how normal flying was these days because it was more like getting on road transport but I thought we had all the airport security in place?! I was tested for explosives. I always am. Somehow I get picked. I hadn't flown for 3 years because I had committed myself to saving carbon to do something positive for the planet. Electronic booking has made it so easy but it has taken away the proof that I am the person on the boarding pass. I thought we were keen on security on planes? Other than that I can say that both flights were so efficiently run and I went Virgin and came back Qantas. The flight attendants were pleasant and helpful. Both Adelaide and Melbourne airports were nice places to be. Melbourne wins hands down on road traffic though. The drive tot he Dandenongs was a breeze and a total contrast to battling my way home on Adelaide roads which are lumpy and congested. Daft. Adelaide could learn a thing or two from the good management of road traffic in Melbourne. The was no sign that it was a big, busy city. The traffic flow was just the best!

Hummingbird Cake

Humming Bird cake is the go. I had no idea how delicious it was until a month ago and then no idea how easy it was to make until I found a recipe on the Net. Love the Net. Just brings me whatever I want. So I  found two recipes and made this cake which is a combination of the two recipes. The beauty of this cake is that it is filling and nutritious! Full of pineapple, bananas and canola oil and I put walnuts in mine. One recipe had pecans. Needless to say the cake disappeared , as did the next one so now there is a new one waiting for the onslaught of appreciate appetites!

I'm melting, I'm melting!

Not really. Some like it hot. I am one of them. I feel much better in this weather. The rest of Adelaide seems to be melting , though, and has done nothing but complain about the heat! I couldn't stand the cold, wet, grey days with wind and rain. I felt totally miserable but it gets no sympathy. The sympathy is with those who cannot stand the heat. Australia is a hot country. We have pools and beaches. We have air conditioners. I am happy to be lovely and warm and not to have to wear layer upon layer of clothing. When it's cold I look like a Yeti. It is just so good to be in T Shirt and shorts. The worst bit is not being able to sufficiently water the garden. My lovely garden is dry already and it will look horribly by Christmas when I want it to look nice. The rain had done it a power of good, so now we are back to dustbowl season and I don't appreciate that.

Robust Technology

New technology has won my admiration lately in a way I should never have imagined. First was the cordless phone. Nice little unit which I took outside while I was washing my car and promptly dropped it in the washing water. Hm. Stupid twit. I fished it out. Dried it off , removed the batteries and the back and placed it near the fire. Wasn't hot then!! The batteries I also placed near the fire. They had the warmth but not the heat. I left it all there for a day. Put normal batteries in and popped it on the base. Signs of life. Stripped it down and warmed it by the fire for another day and put the rechargeables in and bingo...away we went as though nothing had ever happened. Latest nonsense was daughter's USB flash drive going through the wash. This new front loader heats up to 60C and washes for two and a half hours and rinses and rinses. Then I found the USB as I pulled the clothes out. Hot weekend. I dangled it by the cord off the cupboard door in the laundry. It stayed there from Friday night until Sunday and then I tried it on my laptop. Windows offered to repair it and the thing has just carried on as normal. Brilliant I say. This new technology fits my klutzy lifestyle!

Fresh Food

DeSandies, ManYee. mangoes.jpg. . Pics4Learning. 7 Nov 2009

 

We basically banana-ed and pasta-ed our way through winter. Bananas just walk out of the shops. Some sushi-ed. Why, I don't know. Too cold fpr winter but hugely popular here. Now we are truly into salad season and are spoiled for choice. We have become very good at preparing really good salads and adventure into lentil salads, past the four bean mix into roasted pumpkin and have got good at the carrot and ginger, baby beetroot and baby cucumber. I am hooked on mango and radish salad at the moment but my Indian friends are a bit in a panic I should eat so many mangoes. They seem to think they will overheat my body but I find they are just so cooling on a hot day. I doubt they are being silly. There must be something in it so I have had to swap a bit to other salads. Feta cheese and marinated feta cheese! With rocket, almond slivers, parsley and tomato! Great way to get ready for Christmas.

Batman gone batty

He has brown hair and his face is painted white with a red smiley face. 

Someone dressed to look like the Joker tried to rob a shop today. What a joker. Must have gone to a lot of trouble to think that one up...and who gets up on a Saturday morning and thinks...ah yes, I think I'd just emulate Batman's joker , pop down the road and rob a shop. he obviously had lipstick...so what was the woman in his life doing?! Or maybe he is normally a cross dresser? Likes the lippy look? At 11.40am it would have been busy ...because Adelaide was up and at 'em this morning. I was in town by then. He HAD to have been seen. You can't go around  dressed like that on a non pageant weekend and not get noticed. Next week is the pageant...he might have got away with it then. I hope they get him. He got nothing for his effort...effort? I don't think he is very well.

Front Loader Washing Machine

Never had a front loader. Never thought I'd want one. I had a VERY old washing machine and could strip it down and fix it when it got too noisy. I had a new one once and burnt the breaks out and was disgusted with the lint filter so I just used the old one FOREVER! Now my sister has moved from a 3 bedroom place to a one bedroom unit I have inherited her almost new front loader and drier. Yes. I now own a drier. My sister used to have them stacked on top of each other. I have them separate and I can say it makes my laundry look grand. I wasn't supposed to get her washing machine but when she has moved to such a small place then we have had to swap a few items from each of our homes so she can live comfortably. It's the way we did it! It has been fun to get new things from a home you have known! It gives them a new look. The washing machine saga started when there just wasn't enough room to fit in her washing machine and so it was parked randomly in her laundry/bathroom area. She couldn't use it because you couldn't reach the taps. So then it because necessary to find the thinnest washing machine in Adelaide and I must say the sales people were very compassionate and patient and let us measure everything meticulously. Such a tight squeeze! After a week of looking and measuring we found a beautiful little one that has intelligent washing and plays a little tune at the end. The lint filter is magnificent and I must say it is a brilliant little machine. As for my  new front loader...boy do I have to be disciplined! You can't shove stuff in if you forget. You have to remember you put it on too because it it takes 2 and a half hours to wash! A whole new way of washing and it washes so well and takes the fuss out of it all. I love it, but I have had to retrain myself. Impressed with the water saving aspects of it. So now I am a walking advert for front loaders.

Hot ,cold, hot, cold ,HOT!!!!

Hot today. Lovely. Not that we are yet in watering mode or mood and that's not good. We have changed between warm, hot and cold and it is doing us in. It is also having a weird effect on glued things! Stuff is just falling to bits because the glue has lost its grip. Has made for some funny situations...like when my antique cupboard door just fell apart when someone tried to open it. It could mean serious damage will occur if important things are just held by glue. I would hope not, but you never know. We have had a good day in Adelaide today. People got out and about and there were things to do and see, but others were just happy to get into their shorts and T shirts and enjoy the warmth and walk .No signs of BBQs yet. We need siestas in Adelaide. We are a hot country but we have always worked and been expected to work as though it were cooler. Late afternoon slowed us all down. It's great to be back into the warm weather, though. Lovely!

Drug Bust

"(That) is significant in anybody's terms," he said. "These people are making a lot of money and they're using that money to further their criminal activities in many ways."

It seems to come in waves. The police and community get on top of it and then out it all comes again and the signs are sick kids, wasted adults, arguments, shouting, violence and abuse. It has been getting more unstable and I always wonder about the houses whose roller shutters never open. You see them and wonder how people can live like that or if there are people in the house.  It is organised and it escapes no suburb because of that. Maximum profit. I feel sorry for the parents whose kids get lost to this kind of stuff and they must have their backs against the walls. We have to make it easier for people to get it out into the open...but they fear retribution, I guess. Hard line bullying. It is doing us all harm. We have to keep a steady head to combat this kind of stuff. For all the ones the police find, there are those they don't and it is so much like cancer. There is nothing good about drugs and never has been.

Workers

South Australia has some interesting work force problems at the moment.Perhaps they are world problems. There are some first class, highly reliable, extremely competent people who are being pushed to the limit because there are some totally irresponsible, lackadaisical, unreliable workers. It is getting to the stage where people are working enormously long shifts or having to multi task in a very stressful way in order to keep work places going. The problem is some people can talk the talk at the interviews obviously. They must look and sound the part. But they can't be there every day. They can't do a normal day's work and they are not able to be on time or go that extra mile. That is all for someone else. So what are we to do? Judging by the number of kids on the streets then they cannot all be on swot vac. They are often with their parents , so are kids the new companions? What is school attendance like and punctuality? You see kids wandering at all hours. They are not studying on the street and work places are no longer places where you can slack off. Everyone has to be on the ball all the time. So those people who are reliable and who can fill gaps and mess manage are holding all together. It will blow out. We need to have a good hard look at work place conditions. Most people like working and now we have a whole group who believes they shouldn't really have to do much, but most people will work and be happy...a lot are being pushed too hard and too fast. We need some equity.

E_Waste

E-Waste - we are drowning in it. They were banging on about it again earlier in the week but for years now absolutely no progress has been made. We are chockers with old equipment because the new stuff comes out thick and fast and we all want to be faster and slicker. We have a technology pick up here which is sensational but he e-waste remains a hideous problem which needs to be fixed two years ago. We cannot pay for each item to be removed. That is ludicrous. Disposing of e-waste ought to be as straight forward as any other recycling and disposal . We should not pay because we have this stuff foisted upon us at a rapid rate as part of our work and family lifestyle now. We are in the technological age...but all the talk and rattling on about it is not shifting the old stuff out of our homes. Get on with it. Give us as e-waste day and just fix the problem. Sick of the talk because all this computer crap is piling up . Similar problem with ink for printers. It is sometimes cheaper to buy a new printer than buy new cartridges. This is mad. Quite mad. Fix it.

House Prices

Official figures have shown an even bigger increase in house prices than private sector indices out over the past week.

Yes, what has happened to the financial crisis? My accountant was quite clear about the fact the stimulus packages had really helped our economy. Even so. There are sectors of the market where the rich stay so rich and the spending is as reckless and relentless as ever. Others are going without...but financially it all seems a bit odd because there isn't a crisis for a lot of people. Some have become prudent. A lot even know what prudent is these days. A lot don't. Some are still squandering at will. I thought we'd fixed that.

Cold ,cold,cold

So much for the warm weather. Mind you, a few days of sun and already the Adelaide hills are brown with their customary summer blobs of green. Doesn't take much to dry us up. So on the way home , there I was driving through rain , with a grey sky wondering if I should put the heater on in the car. The weather is swinging back and forth between summer and winter. Our bodies must be under some strain here! Our wardrobes are. We were scrambling to find summer clothes as the temperatures rose so fast and now we are back in trackies and fleecy tops. Mad. It's all mad.

Warm, warm warm!

It has been lovely and warm after such a cold, wet winter. Last night there were quite a few Hallowe'en parties and people seemed to enjoy the spirit of it this year. Those without boundaries and consideration did as they pleased. The anti social antics we have grown used to. Some people just don't get it! Today was another matter. We were all in the mood to just loll and enjoy the warm day and have a perfect reason not to do much!

Farm Town

One of the best stress busters I have found this year has been farming! I have a Farm Town farm on Facebook (left) and a Farm Ville farm. Both serve their purpose of distracting me and getting me out of worrying and thinking too much. Over analysing. I set to work on my farms and there you go. So it's a matter of finding the right computer game. I always said I hated computer games. I just hadn't looked for the right ones and now I have a few I play. I like the simulation games and the adventure ones with puzzles and they have really helped me to keep on track and not blow out unnecessarily. They have also taught me you have to do a lot of routine things and then suddenly it takes you up a level and then you can be more creative. It is the routine and reliability which keeps it all in place so you can create. There are some awesome farms out there and some farms which aren't really farms. They are incredibly artistic manipulation of the resources offered on the games. I liked these games so much I bought my own simulation games for the time when these farms will come to an end. It has been an amazing journey and these games have taught me not only to calm myself but to see how just doing all the little thing can produce something really fun and lovely. Both of the games offered Hallowe'en decorations and that was amusing for everyone. Maybe they will come up with Christmas things for our farms. Who knows?!

Pocket Technology

It's all in your pocket...instant communication and internet access. Some people seem to be so dependent on this mobile technology and enough has been said about the daft conversations you become victim to. It's about discounting others and discounting the real world. A lot of people seem to be drifting away from the Net and computers because they do value their real relationships and real life more. Others are becoming more entrenched. How it pans out will be interesting because a lot of 30 somethings have rediscovered and are rediscovering their human roots. A lot of teens are hooked up but they don't actually engage much with the Net other than the odd social network update or games, games games. Reaching them will be hard. Even the news has had to  modify itself. Not for the new generation, the sitting in front of the TV being read the news. They check web updates and headlines and then seem to like their news reinterpreted through a news entertainment and information show. Some of these are good to watch though. Yes, the opinions are there, but so is mine and it's more active under those conditions...but the world in your pocket is going to transform us and may well disengage us...so then what will advertisers do?