Lift Up Your Hearts!

To Whom It May Concern:

If you need to reach us, try the good ol' telephone, or leave a comment here. For some bizarre reason our e-mail is down, even though our general Internet service is working fine. I've only been able to get a few e-mails all day, and none at all in recent hours,

It appears to work for sending, though I don't really know that, either. I'll have to remember to check when it comes back up and see if what I sent was actually received.

"When it comes back up." Soon, I hope. But at present the technicians have no projected duration of the outage....

So, Porter delves into the dark recesses of an accumulation of objects, lifts up an old keyboard, and shouts, "I see a mouse!"

Perfectly logical. Janet had discovered that not one but both of her computer's mice are malfunctioning, and I knew we had a spare one somewhere. Unfortunately, this was the wrong kind of mouse.

It was PS/2 instead of USB.

But at least we didn't have to figure out a way to trap it.

When I have a problem, I'm always amazed at how often a simple Internet search will reveal other with the same problem and very often a solution. But sometimes not. The negative results fall into two catgories: either I'm having a genuinely rare difficulty, or I haven't found the right combination of search terms to narrow the results down to something relevant.

I don't know which was the case with our recent Firefox problem, but I couldn't find any help, so I'm posting this in case it might help someone else.

Invisible Firefox, Firefox opens invisbly, invisble window, can't maximize window, perpetually minimized window, can't see open application window. Maybe that's enough search terms, at least for someone who thinks as I do.

You may have guessed the problem. Suddenly Firefox started operating in stealth mode on our laptop. It would appear to be opening, and would show up as a taskbar button, but appeared to be perpetually minimized. But in reality it was maximized ("maximize" was greyed out when I right-clicked) but invisible.

I won't detail everything I tried, but it was an interesting puzzle and I did find some interesting things, including that the program was still running and would respond to keyboard controls, even though I couldn't see what I was doing. That way I was able to bring up the bookmarks manager and export the bookmarks, which provided a measure of relief.

Doing a system restore did not work; the process was unable to complete for any of the three restore points I tried.

I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox, but even that was not enough.

After I discovered that uninstall doesn't delete your profile, I repeated the uninstall, then changed the names of the old files to force the reinstall to create a new profile, and that did the trick: the Firefox window was visible once more.

Clearly something about the profile had become corrupted, because when I switched back to the old profile (by modifying the profiles.ini file), the problem returned. I had planned to add pieces of the old profile back in a bit at a time to try to discover the source of the problem, but then decided I didn't want to spend any more time on the project; it was faster and easier just to import the old bookmarks into the new profile, set up our customizations again, and deal with the loss of a few cookies and remembered passwords

If this story has a moral, it is the same moral as in all computing tales: backup, backup, backup.

It was a bit frightening.

A few months ago we added a Maxtor OneTouch 200G external hard drive to our system, which excited me greatly because it made backing up my files much easier. Then one day last week we heard a sudden "pop!" and...nothing. No recognition of the drive by the computer, no light on the drive, no light on the power supply. The last was actually good news, as it gave us hope that it was the power supply that had given out, rather than the drive itself with all our data.

Our first attempt to determine the full extent of the damage was frustrating. I called CompUSA (from which we had purchased the drive) and was told (1) yes, they did carry replacement power supplies for our Maxtor drive; (2) they were in stock; and (3) the cost would be $9.99. I thought that was very reasonable, and we headed out to the store.

Only to be met with incredulity: No, we don't have such a thing; we don't sell them and never have. But I just called and was told, etc., etc. Sorry, even though you called our local number, you were actually speaking with a call center and they were just plain wrong.

To the credit of the CompUSA manager, he did offer to sell us a device he thought would be compatible for the quoted $9.99, instead of the marked price, which was twice that. To take advantage of his offer would have been a mistake, however; we were spared thanks to reading the fine print and knowing 1 amp = 1000 milliamps (i.e. 300 ma is not the same as 3a.).

Maxtor itself was much more helpful. To our pleasant surprise, the drive was still under warranty, and they immediately sent us a new ($30) power supply. (Actually, I'm grateful to CompUSA, since if we'd been able to purchase the power supply that night we wouldn't have thought to check the warranty!) The package arrived today, and thanks be to God the drive itself was fine, and all our data with it.

We're up and running again, and struggling with the moral of the story: Back up your data, but quis custodiet ipsos custodes? How to back up the backup? If it's data you really don't want to lose, better have redundant backups, preferably not all in the same room, house, or city.

For those of you who have given up on the long-broken links to Peter's Ponderings and Hannah's Happenings, I finally fixed them. Enjoy!

You will notice a change in the form used for making comments. Thanks to an enterprising (among other adjectives) spammer, I've had to institute an anti-spam measure. When you want to add a comment, simply type in the authentication code you'll see in the form, then send your comment as usual. Thanks for your patience.

Lift Up Your Hearts!, IrishOboe, Sursum Corda, and SalemsAttic have a new home: Lime Daley! This is no bad reflection on our previous host, TLC Web Enterprises, which always treated us well, but we are excited about the change. How many other people can call up tech support and get excellent service, knowledgeable assistance...and the sound of their grandchild in the background?

In addition to setting us up on the Lime Daley server, Jon upgraded our blog software version, so there are some changes. Probably the first thing you noticed is how much faster the pages load. Note also the nifty search box to the right, and the fact that posts can now be assigned more than one category. One downside of the fact that the new version uses caching: sometimes you will need to reload the page (reload, refresh, depending on what your browser calls it) to be sure you are seeing the most up to date posts.

The transition went amazingly smoothly, thanks to Jon's prompt and diligent efforts, but we're still working out some minor details as I get accustomed to the new system, so please let me know if you notice any problems.

So...Lift Up Your Hearts! is back in business—please feel free to post and comment once again.

Lift Up Your Hearts! will be undergoing non-routine maintenance for a little while.  Please refrain from making posts or comments until the changes are complete, otherwise your good words will disappear into cyberspace and never return....  Thanks.

This has been going on long enough I'd better post a notice here: our phones have been out since some time after 3:30 p.m. today. This is the biggest problem we've ever had with our almost entirely delightful AT&T CallVantage Voice Over IP service. It's not a local problem, as other CallVantage customers in the midwest and on the west coast have reported the same problem. Apparently when you call us, you get the "All circuits are busy" message. If we try to call out, we have a dial tone, and the phone appears to dial, but the connection is never made.

We can still access the Internet, except for getting our phone messages; we can't access the CallVantage site, which also tells me this is a major problem, and that it is AT&T's, not ours.

I'll post here when service is restored. In the meantime, I have my cell phone on, and you can post messages here (via comments) if need be.

For those of you to whom this matters, I've added syndication links (RSS, etc.) to the right-hand panel. I'm a complete novice here, but I know that there are various programs out there that you can use with this to let you know when certain websites are updated. SharpReader was recommended to me, though I haven't tried it yet because I have to install the .Net framework first, and I just haven't bothered. For now, the Live Bookmark option in FireFox works pretty well.

The statistics for this blog tell me that I have had over 1400 unique visitors so far. Since only a handful have left comments, it leaves me wondering who you all are. I know the number is inflated, because it only counts IP addresses, and often the same person comes back with a slightly different address. I also know that a number of the visits are from faceless robots. But surely some of them represent real people.

Most of the vistors have been from the United States, but others have come from Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam! I might be able to account for Italy, Hong Kong, and New Zealand as well as a few from the U.S., but who are the rest of you? How did you find my blog? Are you a one-time visitor, or do you check in regularly? What do you like, or not like? Please leave a comment and let me know. You don't have to identify yourself; just let me know you are a real person! I certainly hope that most of my "readers" aren't just robots.

I've been using Mozilla's Firefox browser for some time now, and have recently added their Thunderbird mail client. Not that I have any complaints about my Netscape mail program, but whenever I do an upgrade, Netscape adds a bunch of unwanted junk to my computer, and I'm hoping the more basic Mozilla product will retain the good features without cluttering up my already-overloaded machine.

What I'm really waiting for, however, is for Mozilla to bundle the two products and release them as the Firebird Suite. :)

Lime Daley is the name of Jon Daley's Internet hosting and embedded hardware and software systems company. It is also the name Porter gave to a great drink Jon and Heather invented. For the curious, here is the recipe for a Lime Daley:

ice to taste
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 drops Boyajian lime oil
1 twelve-ounce bottle Blenheim “Old #3” (red cap) ginger ale

Put ice in a tall glass. Add lime juice and lime oil. Slowly pour in Blenheim. Stir well. Be prepared for the strongest kick a non-alcoholic drink can have. (To remember the proportions, think “3, 2, 1, blastoff!” It’s appropriate.)

(I predict LimeDaley.com will be a powerful business.)

Microsoft is challenging Google with its new search engine, now in beta form. I'll admit to a prejudice against Microsoft because it is so big and monopolistic (though Google isn't exactly small), but I decided to check it out. "Msnbot" keeps sniffing around my sites, and I wanted to see what it had found. Lo and behold, "Lift Up Your Hearts" returns this blog in the #2 spot, and "Linda Wightman" finds the Sursum Corda Home page at #1. The descriptions seem to be more useful than Google's. I was really impressed when I typed in "Warren Langdon" and found his book reviews from the Sursum Corda site, although I later discovered that I can also find them through Google; I just hadn't tried before.

I do all my blog work in Firefox, and my secondary browser of choice is Netscape, so I didn't realize the site is fouled up in Internet Explorer until a couple of kindly readers complained. I apologize to all of you IE users, and will try to figure out which of my changes could have made such a mess.