Love/Hate in the Technology World

Posted on April 25, 2014April 25, 2014 by Dusty Roads

My love/hate relationship with technology continues. How am I supposed to clear my head so I can write enjoyable and entertaining entries here when I spend all my time at war with the very tools that make this pastime possible?!

We recently added a new State to the areas we cover. Yay! Growth and expansion are good.

There are 2 of us covering this additional area and we have to toggle back and forth between screens on our computers. Yesterday mid- toggle my computer went into a serious data loop. It just kept searching and searching and searching. Nothing that I tried would interrupted it’s single-minded searching.

I rebooted . I used different browsers I toggled to other screens and back…nothing. Finally I reached out to IT support. Their solution was to remove the browsing history, remove the cache. I’d tried that but I only removed the recent history. Their solution was to remove ALL THE HISTORY. I know now that this was a very BAD IDEA but I followed their instructions. They are the experts, certainly not me.

It worked. The endless search was over but all of my bookmarks had disappeared, my home page was gone, all of the company apps were scattered instead of neatly linked…it is/was just awful!

I struggled all afternoon and managed to get some recovered so I could maneuver around again. Each app has to be accessed separately and I haven’t been able to get my home page back, however I did get my bookmarks back on my tool bar, a minor miracle. That’s when the email came in about the Heartbleed Virus.

You have probably heard about it. We, here at work, were supposed to be unaffected but now it seems that some of our “partners” may have been infected therefore everyone had to change all of their passwords. Detailed instructions were included in the email. So that was my next project.

I had to do a few extra steps since my computer was already in shambles but I got through it. The instructions said following them exactly would automatically update the password on the phone because it is synced with the email account. Don’t trust IT. They lied.

When I got up in the morning I picked up my phone to see what had come in overnight for work. Nothing? I crossed to the lap top and logged in. There were at least 20 new emails there but none of it made it to my phone, my new super duper extra smart $400 phone.

So over my bowl of cereal I attempted to figure out how to change the password on the phone to match the new password on my laptop. The new phones don’t come with a manual. No you have to go online and search. Wasn’t that what started this whole mess?

Well I found the instructions online and I changed the password in the phone. That seems to have done the trick as my emails are once again syncing to my phone. I only wasted 8 or so hours dealing with all this aggravation.

What would we do without this time-saving technology?

Earth Day

Posted on April 24, 2014April 24, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Oh My. I missed Earth Day! How could that happen? I am a true “tree hugger”. I mourn the loss of wild spaces and gardens that are cleared for “expansion”. I support the wolves in Yellowstone. As much as possible I prefer to leave the land as it is.

I own a piece of property in the Adirondack Park in NY. My mother still lives there. A few years ago a family of beavers moved in and built a dam on a stream. This activity was all on my land. My mother, who is clearly from a different generation, spent hours and days waging war against these beavers. I, on the other hand, wanted her to leave them alone. Let their dam create a pond. It’s the natural progression. Eventually the pond will fill in and become a meadow which will then begin to turn into forest. Let nature take it’s course.

Earth Day
Saving the World for the future

Now here’s a controversial thought. Even in my circle of close friends it’s a taboo subject because half believe and half don’t and everyone wants to stick up for their belief. That’s Global Warming. Is it or isn’t it? I think at this point there is ample evidence that there is. True the earth cycles through warming and ice ages and has done that forever but temps are rising faster than ever before in the history of the world. The glaciers are melting and polar bears are being threatened by the shrinking ice sheet. Storms intensify and winters become more severe while summers are hotter and drought is common. Yes, all that is happening now.

Poor mother earth. 🙁 We have not taken very good care of you. Earth Day is needed and I missed it.

Photo of the Week ~ 16

Posted on April 23, 2014April 23, 2014 by Dusty Roads

There were some close counts this week. Some of the photos were pretty colorful and that seems to make them popular. The number one photo for this week was also, in my opinion, the most colorful. With 35 combined points the week 16 photo of the week is Easter Peeps Cake.

To Order Prints click here: http://dustyroadsphotos.zenfolio.com/p161572686/h1b088693#h1b088693

A Big Day for Massachusetts

Posted on April 22, 2014April 22, 2014 by Dusty Roads

Yesterday was a big day for Massachusetts. It was Patriots’ Day. It’s not named for the New England Patriots football team, but the other way around. It’s named for those men who fathered our nation, the minute men, the rag-tag revolutionaries that won the nation’s freedom. Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts commemorated the “shot heard ’round the world”. The Battles of Lexington and Concord which marked the start of the revolution.

A trip to the Concord Green at dawn is a trip back in history as the battle is reenacted with muskets and Red Coats. It doesn’t last long but as the smoke from the muskets roll over the watching visitors it’s easy to be transported back to that day in 1775.

Two more modern events also take place on Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts.

Since 1959 the Boston Red Sox have been scheduled to play at Fenway Park on Patriots’ Day.

But the other big event is the Boston Marathon. This is so big that some people call the day Marathon Monday. Yesterday was especially meaningful because it was the first anniversary of the Marathon Bombings. For many people it was a matter of pride to make sure this year’s running was successful, safe , special.

I was going to meet my friends and co-workers at Mile 13 in Wellesley to cheer on the runners. One of my co workers was running. What makes her run so amazing is that she has been struggling back from an injury that only a couple of months ago had her bed-ridden. I can’t quite wrap my head around what an accomplishment this is!

I ended up missing it. I had to get my business cell phone fixed so I was stuck at the T-Mobile store all afternoon. 🙁 Sadly I had to pull the plug on my phone. It had been struggling on life support for several months and it was just time. It was so far gone that it took forever to get the contents moved from my old phone to the new phone but finally I was back in action. Unfortunately by then most of the runners had crossed the finish line.