It's been harder than I thought to write the "why I blog" post that's been on my backlog for ages. So I'm just going to do it.
I suppose my blog can most charitably be called "eclectic." Some blogs are political, some personal journals, some accumulate interesting articles and news stories, some keep far-flung families in contact, some are formed around a specific cause or issue. I aim to be jack-of-all-trades, and if that means being master of none, I see nothing wrong with that. It depends on your audience. Five-star restaurants require highly-trained and gifted chefs, but I'd take my mother's home cooking and the family dinner table any day. Fine. But why? Why do I put so much time and effort into blogging? What do I hope to accomplish? (More)During the 18 months we lived in the Boston area, we experienced three deaths in our immediate family. This, as I realized how much vital information was being lost, was half the reason I developed an unexpected and almost obsessive interest in genealogical research. The other half was inspired by the proximity of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) library on Newbury Street. Although I am now over 1200 miles away from that treasure trove of information, I maintain my membership in the Society, and their eNews letter arrived at my inbox this morning.
Normally I can skim the newsletter quickly, maybe click on a link or two and read associated articles, bookmark an occasional new resource, then liberate my inbox. This time, however, the missive included a link to a new (to me) blog that is only tangentially connected with genealogy. Over an hour has since elapsed and I am still on the course begun when I opened that e-mail, now making my own post about The Occasional CEO. (More)You may have noticed I've been posting a lot recently. At one point I decided to try to write a post a day for the month of June. There were two reasons for this. The first—and this doesn't matter for those who use feedreaders, but not everyone does—is that I want to give people a reason to stop by frequently; if you don't write anything new, people get out of the habit. At least I did, before I let Bloglines keep track of things for me.
The second, more compelling, reason is the accumulating backlog of things impelling me to write. Books lined up for review; interesting tidbits of news and commentary I figure folks might otherwise not encounter; and the everyday happenings in our lives, which is my attempt to close somewhat the 1000 or more (sometimes much more) mile distance between us and those we love. The only problem with this system is that the list grows even as it shrinks. But at least I'm holding my own this month. I suppose I could post more often (this is actually my second post of the day), but there is more to life—like laundry, as the persistent dryer buzzer is now reminding me.Thanks to Andy B.'s suggestion, I just installed the latest version of Firefox. No verdict on it as yet—it was an easy install, and some of it is seamless, some really cool (such as the security information you can get by clicking on the title bar icon, though the number of websites that identify themselves has been disappointing), and some annoying (changed appearance of some of the icons, which will take some getting used to for someone with the kind of visual memory I have). Some of the big new features include lots of things you can do from the title bar, and I see that how bookmarks are organized has changed; also, security has supposedly been significantly enhanced.
So far I've liked the evolution of Firefox, unlike Netscape which got more and more annoying with each new version, as they added features I didn't want and which ate up more and more memory and disk space. Time will tell with 3.0.The Cult of the Amateur, by Andrew Keen (Doubleday, 2007)
I'm finally reading the book I first wrote about a month an a half ago. This post is no more a proper book review than the earlier one, since I'm only through the introduction and 3/4 of Chapter One. I can feel Mr. Keen's keenly disapproving I Told You So look: yet another example of amateurs doing things badly. So be it. I just experienced a perfect example of why I have a problem with some of his assertions, and want to share it with you, my minuscule but beloved audience. Otherwise, distracted amateur that I am, I'd probably forget the illustration before finishing the book.
While I am reading The Cult of the Amateur, Porter is enjoying a G. A. Henty novel, In the Reign of Terror, and tonight he came upon a word with which he was unfamiliar: louvetier. Naturally, he asked me about it, since for years I have been the family's reference-book-of-choice. If Mom doesn't know, she'll look it up and save the rest of us the trouble. Well, I didn't know, so I went to my handy dictionary. This is no pocket-sized or student edition, but a thick, heavy Webster's with its own dictionary stand—but it failed me. On to the next room, and my online references. BabelFish: No. Answers.com: No. Merriam-Webster: No. Encyclopedia Britannica, surely: Not at all. Yet the combination of Google and Wikipedia, very much maligned in that first chapter I had been reading when Porter's question interrupted me, gave me the answer in a matter of seconds. I should have tried them first, but I was under the influence of the book. A louvetier, for those of you who are panting to know, is a French wolfcatcher, master of the wolfhounds and responsible for organizing the wolf hunts. Wikipedia may indeed be amateurish and prone to bias and error, but it answered the question swiftly and—confirmed by Porter from the context of the book—accurately.
More to come. I can see there is more to appreciate about Keen's insights than I was expecting, as well as plenty with which to disagree.The Cult of the Amateur arrived from the library yesterday, not that I've had time to crack it open yet. But I thought about it when I read today's perspicacious post from "Et Tu?" on Mommyblogging and the water well. It may be debateable whether the amateur works of ordinary blogging folks provide a valid community for otherwise isolated people, or merely distract us from the more difficult task of creating real, physical communities, but there's no denying their significance in many of our lives.
I treasure communities of both kinds, as does the author of "Et Tu?". One important dimension added by the Internet, I find, is the ability to interact with people who are dealing with the same issues as I am, and/or have perspectives similar to mine. I value beyond measure my short-distance, in-the-flesh friendships, but in all the contacts we have had locally—church, school, work, music, sports, neighborhood, Indian Princesses and even other homeschoolers—we have found, yes, good friends, but also big, aching gaps with no one to understand, discuss, struggle, and rejoice together. A broader net was required to gather that community.
Many thanks to Liz at Smithical for directing me to "Et Tu?". And thanks to my feedreader (Bloglines), without which I wouldn't have allowed myself to indulge in yet another interesting distraction.Our spam filter usually works really, really well, but the stupid spammers are getting more and more clever, and there were two when I awoke this morning. I deleted them, but those of you who use feedreaders will no doubt see them. In case you were wondering, my posts were shanghaied—the spam came from Shanghai, China. (Thanks, Feedjit!)
More disturbing, however, was that in the process of deleting them I discovered two legitimate comments that had been marked as spam. I fixed that, but one was in made January and the other in February, so they don't show up in the Recent Comments list. My apologies to Peter V and Stephan; click on their names to see the posts and their comments.I've known the Agony of Defeat often enough when it comes to the sport of e-mail balancing, but today I glory in a victory: My Inbox is empty.
That's rare enough, but not enough to merit a blog post. Although it seems to balloon to over 100 e-mails with unconscionable ease, and sad to say even 300 if I blink, I can usually whack it down to manageable size, even briefly zero, with a little sustained effort. And some cheating. (More)It's another one of those things I lived without just fine, thank you, though now I wonder why I waited so long. Blame an outdated sense of the cost of webcams; I never imagined I could buy one for under $100, much less under $30. But thanks to Stephan, Janet, and Best Buy, I'm all set.
It has been great to be able to see Janet when I talk with her, as well as for her to be able to initiate phone calls. Now I'm having double the fun (or five times as much, depending on how you calculate it) because another of my favorite families has joined the video Skype crowd. I'm sure the excitement will wear off after a while, but for now I'm enjoying lots of smiles, hugs, I-love-yous, what's-happening-now, and best of all those dear faces and voices. I love to get those quick little text messages that say things like "Hi! I finished my math and am now going to do writing," with plenty of music note and hugging teddy bear emoticons.
And this morning? This morning I was the delighted one-person, long-distance audience for a cello concert!Having discovered FEEDJIT on Stephanie's blog, I had to try it myself. (That's the "Recent Visitors" map in the panel to the right.) It's a graphical (and geographical) peek at who my faithful readers are, and who has wandered in via a random search. Don't worry, I don't really know who you are, just where you're coming from (which allows me to guess who you might be). Even that isn't always accurate; I'm certain that all those Portsmouth, Rhode Island hits are actually from Hartford, Connecticut. And my Swiss fan has only once showed up as from Basel—the rest are all over the map, and I'm certain I don't have a following at the Château de Chillon, despite the hits from Montreux. The greatest problem is that I won't see you if you hide behind a feedreader; until Heather posted a comment, one would have thought I had no readers in Pittsburgh at all.
Still, it's been both entertaining and enlightening. I'm certain of the identity of those who show up on the map as Oswego and Schenectady, and am delighted to know you read much more than you comment. :) I can identify most of my known readers, but am totally mystified by someone in Tempe, Arizona, who read some 20 posts. Most who find me via a search read the one post and then leave. (More)A long time ago (in computer years), we were told that the best way to extend laptop battery life was
- Always do a full, complete charge/discharge cycle; never do partial charges/discharges.
- Always charge the battery with the computer off.
- Take the battery out of the laptop when running on A/C power.
There must have been something valuable about this advice, because our IBM Thinkpad R31 battery is six years old, and only recently has shown signs of deteriorating—and that after we had begun being a little careless with the above procedure, though at that age it may have been coincidence. Searching around on the Internet I find that people even today seem to be happy with a three-year battery life.
However, I'm sure technology has changed, and I'm wondering if the recommendations have. The instructions that came with my new computer recommend the full charge/discharge cycle, but say nothing about keeping the machine off while charging. Although they don't deal with the issue directly, they seem to assume the battery will be in at all times, even when using A/C power. They do suggest removing the battery if the computer will be off "for an extended period of time" (whatever that is) when on the road, to prevent battery power from draining.
Looking online, I can find (as one might expect) every possible variation on (1) the original advice, above; (2) everything has changed and you don't need to do any of that anymore; and (3) some of it is still helpful, but not enough so to be worth the hassle. One piece of information I didn't know is that there is a power meter in the battery itself, which is calibrated by full charge—full discharge—full charge, which is why it's important to do that when the battery is new, and perhaps every 30 days thereafter.
With this new machine, I'm inclined to leave the battery in most of the time and not worry about it, after the initial calibration, but anyone else's experience, knowledge, and suggestions would be appreciated.
I'll write in further detail about my wonderful Christmas present from Porter, the outcome of the debate detailed in this post. But while reading the Safety and Warranty Guide for my 
new computer, I came upon this admonition and could go no further without reporting it:
Do not operate your computer inside furniture, as this might increase the risk of overheating.
My mind boggled trying to imagine what piece of furniture I might wish to be inside, even if I could imagine how to get there. I finally decided this must be a very generic booklet that doesn't realize this is a laptop computer—after all, it did also tell me to keep the cover closed whenever the computer is plugged in. (More)Today our computer network stopped working.
I needed to access a file on our laptop from our Windows 98 machine. Nothing. Nada. The helpful message from Windows told me the nework was unavailable and I should contact my network administrator. Hello, that's me, and neither I nor me had any clue. Even more helpfully it told me to start the network troubleshooter, which then presented me with a totally blank screen. Apparently it had no more clue than me or I. For the record, Porter was equally stumped, though he manfully plowed through our home networking book for a while. (More)How many times do I have to be taught that technology, while useful, even delightful at times, is not to be depended on? I wonder if electronic equipment works better in Switzerland, where trains and trams are so dependable that a three-minute deviation from schedule is a noteable occurrence?
Once again, I picked up my PDA to find it had lost everything. This is the third time that has happened in about a year an a half, and I think it's related to alarms going off repeatedly when I'm not aware of them. I'd love to shut off the alarms on the handheld device, but I can't do that without removing them from the desktop, which is where I really need them. But this time surprised me, because last I knew there was still plenty of life in the batteries.
Oh, well -- I had a backup and only lost a couple of pieces of data. It would be helpful if I knew which data I'd lost, but I'll manage. At least this time I was home and could restore the data quickly—the first time I was on vacation and could do nothing till my return. That's when I learned to keep key information on paper when I travel!
Our nifty electronic devices are still too useful for me to give them up altogether, but it's good to be reminded now and then of the importance of backups and of Plans B. Of more concern is our similar dependence on fallible sources of heat, light, water, food, transportation, and other basic necessities, but that's another issue and much harder to resolve.
