bobbynichols

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Posts posted by bobbynichols

  4. Earth Hour

    in Open Chat

    Posted

    Switched to flourescent bulbs a long time ago... Significant change in electrical usage.

    I also leave the water heater on for only 4-hours a day, sometimes less, for shower, bath, and dirty dish cleaning. I manually switch at the breaker box (I'll buy a timer when it becomes affordable). An on-demand water heating system has been on my mind as an investment for quite a while.

    I agree with Pete C that LED lighting (especially when used with low-power, lower costing solar technologies) will be the next quantum leap to electrical lighting energy savings.

    I wonder what the bio-luminescent technologies are up to? Guess I'll do a web research on that soonest.

  6. Help Us Compile A New List

    in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP

    Posted

    My bad if already mentioned or not applicable:

    Portable Applications for your thumbdrive: http://portableapps.com/

    * Freeware and open source: Applications include...

    Accessibility

    Development

    Education

    Games

    Graphics & Pictures

    Internet

    Music & Video

    Office

    Operating Systems

    Utilities

    Included Applications

    "All versions of the PortableApps.com Suite include the integrated PortableApps.com Menu (pictured at right) and the PortableApps.com Backup utility along with a set of custom icons, an autoplay configuration, folders and a quick start shortcut. In addition, the packages include:

    Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)

    Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)

    Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)

    ClamWin Portable (antivirus)

    Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)

    Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader

    KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)

    Sudoku Portable (game)

    Mines-Perfect Portable (game)

    CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)

    OpenOffice.org Portable* (office suite)

    - Writer (word processor)

    - Calc (spreadsheet)

    - Impress (presentations)

    - Base (database utility)

    - Draw (drawing)

    *Note: The Light Suite includes AbiWord Portable (word processor) instead of OpenOffice.org Portable."

    A listing from the what's new section:

    "Feb 23 FileZilla 3.2.2.1

    Feb 22 Command Prompt 2.0

    Feb 21 Toucan 2.0.6

    Feb 21 KeePass 1.15

    Feb 21 FileZilla 3.2.2

    Feb 20 Toucan 2.0.5

    Feb 18 OpenOffice.org 3.0.1

    Feb 16 GIMP 2.6.5

    Feb 12 Notepad++ 5.2

    Feb 10 FileZilla 3.2.1

    Feb 04 Mozilla Firefox 3.0.6"

    ... and from Wikipedia a list of more portable applications for your thumb drive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portable_software

    and portable games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portable_computer_games

  9. Obama

    in World and Politics

    Posted

    "ad hominem"... thanks for the Latin lesson. It goes well with my Latin lesson from a couple of weeks ago by the California DMV: 'caveat emptor' (buyer beware) when I found out I was responsible for a previous owner's stop payment on a check for $97.00 on some truck fees.

    I think President Obama is finding out as JFK did: "When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were."

    - John F. Kennedy

    I pray for this country and for the world at large; and for this President who aspires to heal a great wound in the American psyche... May he live up to his dream.

  11. Legalization

    in World and Politics

    Posted

    Cali has a huge problem, shared by other states/provinces/other, with illegal 'gardens' growing everywhere in the woods. Confrontations with armed 'thugs' is always a possibility if one blithely walks into wooded areas.

    In a discussion I had with a fellow church member not too long ago we discussed the idea of training deer, who have roaming privileges everywhere, to seek out and devour the 'crops' when chanced upon.

    We quickly realized, however, we'd have an even bigger problem with the deer accosting people, or breaking into homes, looking for munchies...

  14. Error Loading Https Websites

    in Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP

    Posted

    Howdy !

    Friends of mine have a problem that came up all of a sudden after many months of no problems... possibly due to recent ¿Windows updates?... (their humble thoughts, not mine)... dunno.

    The problem they are having is HTTPS websites not loading... including Yahoo Mail... (loading HTTP sites work fine).

    Error message: "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage."

    They use Windows XP on a Satellite connection

    The sites they try to access work on my humble machine both in Opera and Explorer 7 (they use Explorer 7 exclusively).

    I deleted their cache with no joy and even disabled their Firewall (Windows Firewall... with no other firewalls on the system) with no change.

    A fleeting error, only reproduced a couple of times, said there might be a firewall problem... but again, the problem exists even with the firewall disabled. I changed the firewall to default condition also, with no help.

    I did look at SSL and TLS in Tools/Internet Options/Advanced but they were already checked the same as my system is.

    Any other avenues I might try ?

    Thanx !

  15. Forty-seven Degrees Below Zero, Fahrenheit

    in Open Chat

    Posted

    ... Cooling trend on the way... should get down to the mid 60º's Fahrenheit for the next 3-4 days.

    We usually get a week or so warmish weather in January here in the Sierra foothills in Cali... But today was incredible... Even the late afternoon light breeze was warm.

    ... But we need water... The drought continues.

    Good luck to all y'all out in that cold stuff !

  21. Update To: So How Did I Get Infected In The First Place?[RESOLVED]

    in Malware Removal

    Posted

    Howdy !.

    My daughter has a new computer and a pre-teen son. Nuf said.

    Their surfing habits may be suspect and I've already been requested to help out with some PC anomalies... Sooooooooooo, as a start I gave her a pendrive with mbam loaded and instructions to get her started on her XP box.

    I wanted her to try this easy first step after 'the malware from surfing/email peptalk' - which is always better understood, unfortunately, after a bug infestation.

    I then perused the pinned topic "So How Did I Get Infected In The First Place?" by tjet (if I remember correctly), for more helpful advice to impart to her (to link to the page for her in an email, or install on a pen drive, or some such) .

    Good start, but the post is somewhat dated (Feb 2005) and was wondering if someone could possibly bring the post more up-to-date. Unfortunately I'm certainly not up to par to tackle this task... I take advice well, but am not all that tech savvy to tackle this.

    Might be a good time since there will be many a new PC for some this time of the year.

    Thanks for all the great advice; and for the wonderful community that is Besttechie.

  23. Hello Again

    in Open Chat

    Posted

    Howdy !

    Welcome back !

    Merry Christmas !!! (Joyeaux Noël/Fröhe Weihnachten/Feliz Navidad, etc.)/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Solstice/other/nothing !!! [must be pc (ar-ar)]

    Good luck at MIT and drop by more often.