Well at last I feel as if I am catching up a bit. While we went last Saturday to a woodworking show in New Jersey, I managed to have enough time at my computer to help me catch up several things - I even managed to prepare a partnership tax return for a client and it is going out in the mail tomorrow. We finally picked up my replacement eyeglasses and I am getting used to darker frames than I had before - I see them when I look through the glasses - I swear the frames were lighter in color when I picked them out in the store.
I finally had a chance to scan into the computer the papers I copied while we were replacing the scanner and getting it going. I hate doing things twice, but had to copy and then scan the copies as there was no other choice. At least the scanning is finally done.
I change the bedding weekly, but I change the bedding’s “underwear” once a month. The under covers for the pillows get tossed in
the laundry with the regular bedding for the week, but the mattress pad is too large to do so and is a load of laundry on its own. I finally managed to get it washed and dried this past week - it has been sitting in the sorter in the basement. I also did a load of jeans last week I save them up as I don’t have enough in a week to justify another load of laundry. I also had a number of sweatshirts to be washed, so I did two loads of clothes last week. This week’s laundry is humming along right now - the clothing load is washing, timer on my cell phone set to remind me to do down with the downstairs towels so I can do a load of towels next.
I packed up the “soft” Christmas decorations. This is an assortment of stuffed teddy bears, reindeer, a doll, stockings, hangings, and other similar items in Christmas theme which have been out - two of the bears are actually Chanukah ones. They all go in a plastic box together in the basement. I have also started taking the packed boxes of Christmas tree ornaments down to the basement - when I go down to switch laundry loads, another of the four boxes will go down. When I am done with those the box of living room decorations and the box of kitchen, dining room, front hall decorations will follow. I take them down in order as this way the tree ornaments are on the bottom of the stack of boxes as they will come out last next year. I still have my teddy bear Christmas village to pack - when these boxes are all down - it will be time to take it down (okay it is past time, but it is our favorite decoration so it comes out first and goes back last).
The woodworking show was a nice change for something to do for the day. Mostly the same vendors are there year to year, although a lot of the regular vendors have dropped out over the years or combined, and the new vendors tend to not be actually wood work related (leaf screens - not really related, investment company - definitely not related). It is an extremely LOUD room as vendors have not only their power tools going, but vacuums and they all are on microphones. In the early days of husband’s woodworking he would have had a list of things to look for and buy, but he has most of the equipment he needs, he does less woodworking (although he still owes me the replacement bread drawer for the kitchen) and we have no money to spend on it. There is no reason to add to the clutter in the workshop with unneeded additional tools. Okay, there was something which caught his eye. Two vendors (new ones) had similar items - it lets one hookup a tool to one’s computer and it will carve designs into wood automatically on its own. But they are thousands of dollars and there is no place to put them.
After the show we went to a chain craft store as it is on the way to where we go for dinner while in New Jersey as we don’t have a store from this chain near where we live. Did not buy anything, but nice to look - they are suppose to be opening near us sometime this year or next, I am sure that anything nice will not make it here, but it is nice to plan. Husband particularly likes the yarn at the store - much bigger and nicer variety than we have here. This is another place where we could buy a lot of items - but we don’t as we don’t have room for it all.
We warped (set up) the loom again for husband to work - this time he is making a spring colored table runner. We had problems getting it set up - not sure why, we should know what we are doing by now, and he had to take part of it out after he started weaving as is went on an angle. He was annoyed as he considered this a simple project to do and relax while he did it. During the week we finished washing the last few items he wove. The items have to be washed to change the weaving from yarns to fabric. They are hand washed and then laid out flat to dry on a rack in our studio so there are days between the washings to allow them time to dry.
We did have a computer problem yesterday. We suddenly lost access to everything on our home network - we could still print and scan, but if we tried to access the server drive - or each other’s computers - the entire setup to do so was gone! Husband figured out it was somehow related to the installation of the new printer unit and finally managed to get it up and working again.
This is school vacation week around here. It was started in the late 1970's for the school districts to save money on heating costs. When husband worked at an non-profit with a school year schedule and we still stayed in hotels, we would often go away for part of this week as it was easy and cheap to get hotel reservations in nearby states (okay, Pennsylvania) as elsewhere there is school after Monday’s holiday. We are thinking of trying our one day trip to same again this week - third attempt’s the charm?
We have had mostly wonderful weather the past week - when we went to the woodworking show we actually left our jackets in the car and just wore sweatshirts as it was in the low 60Fs. The weather is suppose to continue. I hope that none of you or yours have been caught in the tornados in Texas or the raining and flooding in California this past week.
Well, that was a bit of a ramble this week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Don’t forget to look at all the possible reasons for a problem.
I have posted about replacing the hard drive on my computer late last year. I am still finding software which was not reinstalled - I start to do something and whoops! I also had a problem with a program we reinstalled.
I do not commonly use Word for my word processing. I use another less popular program. I also use an older version of it and do not want to switch to a newer version both due to cost and I am concerned that if I use the updated version it will not have same controls and functions as the verison I am using now. There was an update (actually a few updates) to the program which also have to be reinstalled. The program is, of course, no longer supported by the manufacturer.
One of the problems I have been having - even with an update installed - is that I cannot import the address books - and here I was so careful to back them up at least quarterly up until the hard drive was replaced. Husband came up with the idea of installing the program on the XP virtual drive of my computer (it is on the Windows 7) as XP existed when the program was written and & did not. The program did work fine on & before the change of hard drive.
It worked - the installation program now is no longer partially greyed out. So I went to import the address book data files to the XP installed version. Now being how I am, I have several address books in the program - one for family and friends, one for clients, one for one of the clubs I am in, two for the other one (members and non-member contacts I need), Internal Revenue Service returns for assorted returns - some for several different states, my home state tax department, a general “other states, and lastly an “other” - this last for anything which does not by who it is fit into the other books - such as bills we pay on a regular basis, etc.
I started importing the address book data into the program - the first book comes in and we are excited that it worked - problem solved - and then I go to import a second one - it goes through the entire process, but there is nothing in the address book after it is done. I try again - same thing. I then turned on my work laptop and try to import to it - after all, I have been able to import two books to it in the past. It also would not import the next book.
Husband, always looking to make me happy with my antique software, was going crazy searching the Internet and we were trying all sorts of things. Finally he asked a question which resolved the problem (at least as far as importing to the XP installed version). “Let me see the backup data.”
Ah, we had been assuming this was a program software problem. No. When I went to show him the data, there was none in several of the last set of backups - hence the program had imported the data, it is just that there was one. Why did we not think to look for an alternate reason the information was not importing? Why did we just assume (and you know what happens when one assumes) that it was a software problem? I went to the backups before the one I was importing from and all the data except from two address books imported! The other two books had not had their data properly backed up since 2015! So I imported the data from the last backup from 2015. (I am so glad that I keep the old versions of the backups!) I will have to do a bit of updating - for example the two clubs I have books for have each gotten some new members since the backups were made - but I would have had to do so anyway as the most recent backups were before this also. I at least do not have to sit and enter over 100 addresses again.
We will also try this update on the Windows 7 installed version in case it corrects the import program for same also.
So, if something does not work and what you try to do to fix it does not work, think what else could be wrong - it could be something even more simple than you thought it was.
No comments:
Post a Comment