Home Computer Talk

I pretty much grew up with computers as part of my life. I had them at school and used typing, games, etc programs. I remember using dot matrix printers and planning the most basic version of Lemmings. I was introduced to the internet when I was about ten or so. (Funnily enough, I remember thinking, “Why would anyone want to use that?”)

Even with all of this, there is a lot about computers that I just don’t know. I have geared myself into the internet side of things with blogging, gaming, and other internet activities. When it comes to the bits and pieces of computers, there isn’t a lot I know.

Despite that, I took on this blog because I have a passion for computers and knew I could rely on my husband, Mr. JM, for guidance when it came to the nuts and bolts stuff about computers.

I’ve been thinking about it for a while and finally had a talk about it with the husband…

I think it’s well past time here on Home Computer Talk that Mr. JM had a bigger voice. I have been asking him about things and pestering him about so much that it no longer makes sense to keep on as I’ve kept on.

So, without further ado, I would like to welcome my husband and now co-blogger here to Home Computer Talk.

You’ll be able to identify his posts by the “By Mr. JM” at the beginning of each of his posts. (Until 451press resolves its other technical difficulties.)

This doesn’t mean I’ll stop posting, by any means. I’ll just be posting less as Mr. JM steps in to talk more about the technical side of things and his day-to-day work as a helpdesk person.

I hope you all join me in welcoming him to the site.

As you may know, I also write for the site Finally Getting Fit (among others) here on the 451Press network. On Finally Getting Fit, I talk about my weight loss journey and trying to make a healthier life for myself.

I have been overweight most of my life, but that’s not the case for everyone…

With the increase of convenience technology, humans have fewer and fewer reasons to be as active as they once were. To make up for that, some of us join gyms, make sure to get out and about on weekends, buy in home gyms…but not everyone does. And the more you get used to sitting in front of your computer (for whatever reason) the easier it is to pack on the pounds.

So what can you do about it? How do you lose the pounds without losing too much of your computer time?

*Get two tennis balls and (more…)

I guess the most obvious question about being a part of the internet is ‘Why?’ Some people may always be observers but not participants, using their access to read, view and download but never actually putting things out there for others to read, view and download.

Others spend their time playing online games – sometimes for money, which involves participation but rarely contributing to the morass of data that is the web. Yet if everybody felt this way, there would be no internet.

The web can be a safety valve, not just (more…)

In the previous post I used the example of the Hockey Stick graph used successfully by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) to ramp up awareness of the warming trend caused (they say) by human industry and consumption.

Keep in mind, the above graph is what, until the IPCC got on the case, was an agreed record of global temperature trends. Agreed across Science, backed by historical records as well as things like ice core data.

So what happened? If you enter a search in your favourite search engine of ‘hockey stick graph’ you will find the main author was Dr Michael Mann. He was an IPCC lead reviewer who somehow got to highlight his own work as being most indicative of the AGW. (Anthropogenic Global Warming – the warming caused (more…)

For those who may have been exploring their Consciousness in a cave in the Andes, or perhaps have 5 children under five years old to look after, and thus may not know, for some time now there has been a controversy raging over whether or not Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is occurring.

This graph is the major source of the problem

Keep in mind, in this argument, nobody is suggesting we haven’t had recent warm weather, nor even that the Earth isn’t getting warmer. Indeed, standard Science has said all along that, since an event called The Little Ice Age about four hundred years ago, the Earth has been on a steady warming trend. (more…)

Some time back there was a flurry of activity about a movie called The Secret. It claims to contain information used by sages and successful people down through the ages and to be informative of a way of thought that those ‘in control’ don’t want us to know. It is available now to download from such sites as www.torrentz.com as a movie, an audio book and even as a hemisync track.

The hemisync track uses binaural beats to get your brain into alpha mode while the message of The Secret is talked about. The idea is to have it almost like hypnosis so the message gets in.

Powaqqatsi and Koyaanisqatsi are movies by Godrey Reggio which tend to defy categorization. They stand, I guess, as works of Art rather than Hollywood style movies. Koyaanisqatsi is a movie with (more…)

RAM, or memory for your computer is probably the best upgrade. It’s been a while since there was a major change in the chip (CPU) that runs your computer apart from some tweaks in speed and the number of simultaneous operations it can perform.

Those tweaks can be important if you’re pushing the envelope of performance, such as high end video editing or creation or the latest in games. But for the average user, nothing adds extra ‘zing’ to the day-to-day as RAM. And it’s cheap.

You do, however, need to be careful about what memory you buy. There are different kinds (more…)

So… you’ve looked around, found your needs, discovered which ones suit your computer best, found a supplier with a good rep and a decent price and you’re wondering who you can pay to do the upgrade.

Relax, it’s not that hard. If you try not to worry about the complexities of what a computer actually does, there are only a few parts to see in the box and they are easy to identify.

But first, read and meditate on the following…

Rule number one – (more…)

There are a number of ways computers can respond to, and use, voice. I don’t know how many of you remember a TV show featuring a character called Max Headroom? I think many people think computer talk is like that show; the reality is somewhat different.

The storyline is about a video reporter, Edison Carter, in a world ’20 minutes into the future’ who runs afoul of the Corporations that run the rather seedy world of the future. In his zeal for getting at the truth, he finds out about a new form of advertising called ‘Blipverts,’ an ultra-effective way (more…)

Internet computing has a long history - longer than most of you would believe. It began back in the 1960’s and has two roots. One is the desire of Universities to connect up their computers and the other, more well-known is the original DARPA set up. (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency)

The web cam was one of the first graphics uses for the internet; http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/03/07/worlds_first_webcam_coffee_pot/ documents the demise of the coffeepot involved.

Where most people come to know the internet is at the point when the graphical interface was added and we had the birth of the World Wide Web (www) Now, after more than a decade (more…)

Before I came to Australia to be with Mr JM, I’d never heard of Doctor Who. Now, after seeing three seasons of it, it’s one of my favorite shows ever.

It’s quirky, funny, thought provoking and English. Mr JM tells me the original Doctor Who, while definitely a must-see program in his early years, was very cheaply made and had non-existent production values. But these modern episodes are well made and very well written.

And that’s important to me – in my other incarnations (more…)

I guess we all know the basics about computers and the range of what they are capable of. In an earlier post I mentioned Mr JM’s idea about the ‘Oh Fuck’ reaction when a person sees, for the first time, a computer do the one thing that grabs their imagination.

As a result of some very ingenious and persistent people (called programmers) we have a multitude of things that people do on their computers. Typing up letters and performing calculations using a spreadsheet (the original uses of the IBM PC that got people buying them) are still common uses, although those who learned to do it in the early days would hardly recognize the processes now.

These days we can upload and manipulate (more…)

How big a part does Internet play in your life? Or the lives of your family?

This weekend was Easter (‘duh’ for obvious) and Mr JM and I went away into the country. We had some friends to visit but mostly it was to have a break, see some new country, (something we both like) and to show me some more of my adopted land.

Australia is quite a place, although I have yet to see much more than a part of Victoria, Canberra and a section of the New South Wales South coast. The animals, landscapes and light seem very different to those to which I was accustomed.

We went to The Grampians National Park, about 250 kilometres west of Melbourne. The Grampians are a mountain range (as Australian mountains go) that jut out of surrounding plains in a jagged North-South orientation. They are probably the least ‘smoothed’ hills I’ve seen here, with jagged peaks and jutting spurs that are rather awesome, particularly close up.
(more…)

How much of what we read on the Internet should we believe? The web is a place of mystery and absurdity, knowledge and fantastic concepts, but it is also open to a high level of abuse.

Even leaving out the dangers of which we’ve all heard of being stalked and having young children misled and abused, there is the issue of just how true the information we find might be. We need to know just how reliable the facts and figures are that we find in our searches. Take a look at this…

Now this search was from a (more…)

…sometimes have to go through more than they can deal with.

Mr JM says he has had clients who personify this sort of basic commonsense.

From the Internet…This is a true story from the WordPerfect Helpline which was transcribed from a recording monitoring the customer care department. Needless to say, the Help Desk employee was fired; however, he is currently suing the WordPerfect organization for ”Termination without Cause.” This is the actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee (now I know why they record these conversations)!
”Ridge Hall computer assistance; may I help you?”
”Yes, well, I’m having trouble with WordPerfect.”
”What sort of trouble?”
”Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.”
”Went away?”
”They disappeared.”
”Hmmm. So what does your screen look like now?”
”Nothing.”
”Nothing?”
”It’s a blank; it won’t accept anything when I type.” (more…)