Windows Weirdness Part 2

I thought my desktop had recovered from the crash until I tried to print a document from Word and was told I had no printer. I restarted a couple of times to see if that would clear the problem but no luck. The Dell 1350 laser printer was listed in Devices and Printers but Word could not find it. I then tried to print a document from Acrobat and was told I would first have to install a printer.(!) I Coogled and found a printer repair utility on the Microsoft site and ran it. I was now able to print my document from Word but when I tried to print a second document I was told I had no printer. Same from Acrobat. I then deleted the printer and reinstalled it, allowing it to download a new driver from the internet. Same thing... I did not have a printer even though it showed up in Devices and Printers. I did a System Restore from way before the crash but it did not help. The printer showed up but I was told I had no printer! Oh boy, now what?

Shortly after I bought the computer I downloaded a copy of the free backup utility EaseUS Todo Backup. I have never tested this program but I had a full system backup about a week old so thought I would give it a try. I had nothing to lose. I opened the program, found the backup location, answered a couple of simple questions and hit "OK". It hummed away for about an hour, rebooted and EVERYTHING WORKS!

I did remember to back up my data so now I just have to wait for Windows to catch up with it's recent updates and I am away to the races. I can't say enough for this backup program! It is easier to use than the Norton Ghost I had on my Windows XP machines and it worked flawlessly! And best of all it is free to home users!

Get with it and backup onto an external hard drive! This could (will) happen to you!

Windows 7 Weirdness

That was scary! Last night I attempted to download photos from my granddaughter's camera's SD card onto my desktop Windows 7 computer so I could burn them onto a DVD for her. She had her 4GB card so loaded that it could no longer store new photos and she is afraid to move them to her computer as she was told this would slow her computer down. Anyway... I slipped her SD card into my reader and the screen froze. I tried everything but could not free it up. The only thing I could do was to hold down the power button to turn the computer off.

When I tried to restart the computer it would not get past the Acer splash screen. It just sat there. I tried DEL and F12 but that did nothing. After a couple more attempts of powering down and restarting, I powered down again and unplugged the computer overnight. This morning I plugged it back in and powered up while tapping F8 to get into Safe Mode. It suggested going into the startup repair mode. I watched the repair mode box for a while until it suggested using System Restore. I said OK and it went back to the Startup Repair box. I went for breakfast and a half hour later nothing had changed. The repair box was still open and scrolling endlessly. I powered down again and restarted in Safe Mode. This time I chose "Start Windows Normally" and it worked. I did three restart cycles and it worked every time.

Now the computer would not recognise my USB flash drive. I tried to do a System Restore and chose a date two days ago. It sat on the "Preparing System Restore" box for a good hour, doing nothing. I did a restart and Windows opened again. I Googled and someone suggested creating a new restore point and restoring to that point. I did and it worked. However, my older restore points do not seem to work My USB flash drive was still not being recognised but I fixed that by unplugging the computer again for a few seconds. That fixed the USB problem.

I used my laptop to transfer my granddaughters photos onto a DVD and everything worked. Her camera now works much faster with a formatted SD card. The fact the photos transferred fine on the laptop eliminates any chance of a virus on her SD card. I will do a full scan with MSE anyway.

My old System Restore points still do not work and the Internet is full of complaints about Windows 7 System Restore. I guess I will just have to live with it and make sure my backups are always up to date. It is working but I do not trust it. The computer is less than four months old. I hate it when things go wrong!

Meeting At Parksville

Brooks and Linda Lee were driving over to Tofino to go fishing for the weekend with friends. The plan is to catch enough salmon to feed everyone at the wedding. They picked up our granddaughter, Sierrah, from Victoria and I met them in Parksville and brought her up here for a week. We were supposed to meet at the Chevron at the intersection of Highways 19 and 4 at 5:00. We were both 15 minutes early and pulled into the gas station at exactly the same time! No waiting!

It will be a fun week here. Our neighbour Pauline's granddaughter will also be here and the two of them get along so she will have someone to "hang out" with.

 

Fence Done!

We put the finishing touches on the fence yesterday, painted it, and I was on the road home by 1:00 PM. When we went down to the building supplies to buy material on Saturday we talked to the manager who Brooks buys much of his material from, up to $100K per year. Sometimes he gets good deals and this was one of those days. In the "bargain bin" we found a five gallon pail of the best quality Olympic Stain available. It had been mixed to the wrong colour and refused by the original customer. It was Milk Chocolate in colour. The original price tag on it was $199.99 and it was marked down to $99. For that kind of saving, I can like milk chocolate. We took it up to the till and when Brooks introduced me to his manager friend and said we were building a fence for me, I asked for the "Starving Old Pensioners' Price". He then marked the stain down another 25% to $75!

This recycled fence was not actually in panels but was a big pile of loose four foot long cedar boards in Brooks' yard. The tops were rotten down a couple of inches and the bottoms up about six inches. Using Brooks commercial radial arm saw I sliced off the tops and bottoms and was left with very solid boards three feet long. He has a large framing table that automatically squares the fence panels and we quickly built new 2X4 frames for the new panels. These have an extra 2X4 across the middle which allowed us to stack two of the recycled boards to make six foot high panels. Narrow cedar boards cover the joints. They look really nice.

We then stood all the panels up in Brooks' parking area and he went to work with his spray gun. This had to be done because the old boards had been stained green many years ago and had varying amounts of colour still on them. Brooks supplies painted panels if a customer insists (and is willing to pay) but hates doing them. The sprayer is hard to clean and maintenance costs on it are high. As well, he usually hits the shop or his truck with over spray. It is not a nice job to do but they have a huge order of stained fence coming up this week anyway. He is the only fencing company on the lower Island that will paint or stain fences at all.

Our panels now look like giant 6' by 8' foot Hershey Bars but will blend in nicely once they are up. It will not take long to get used to them. Brooks will bring them up in a couple of weeks to install them. The guy who will be house sitting for us this winter is coming over to help as the panels weigh about 300 pounds each! I will have to buy posts and cement at that time. The entire project should cost me no more than $500 for all seven eight foot panels, including beer for the crew. It is good to have family in the business.

Fence, Part 2

After an early 7:00 AM start and a trip to town for material, we have completed five panels. I treated Brooks and Linda Lee to a halibut taco dinner at the Cowichan Bay Pub and we are now back home relaxing. Tomorrow should see the end of construction and we should be able to spray paint them late tomorrow.

Building Fences

I headed down to Brooks and Linda's for a couple of days while Norma stayed home to play in her garden. Brooks and Linda have salvaged enough material to build a six foot high, 60 foot long cedar fence that will go very nicely between us and our condo neighbours. We have needed this fence for a long time and a couple of weeks ago they replaced a fence that had some rot at the bottom but other than that, all the boards are in great shape. After cutting a few inches off the bottoms, we are combining the salvaged boards with new framing material and building new panels.

One panel down and seven to go!

More Company

We had company over the weekend when some old friends came up for a visit. Rick is a (just) retired firefighter from Victoria and Sharon works for the Canadian Union of Public Employees out of Vancouver. We have known Sharon since the 70's when her and Norma started working on election campaigns together. Everyone had a lot of catching up to do over several cold beer and glasses of wine. We had some late nights so now I have some resting up to do.

Yesterday we got a call from my great nephew (my brothers grandson) who was passing by Campbell River on a 45 foot yacht which is owned by a business acquaintance. They were sailing from Nanaimo to Port Hardy on the north end of the Island and are going to overnight in Campbell River. We drove down to the dock to meet them and had a great time chatting on the boat before all eight of us headed over for fish and chips on the dock. It was nice seeing Alex, Dawn and the girls. It has been a long time. We will see them again in a month at Brooks and Linda Lee's wedding.

Norma's Garden

I hope the deer are not reading my Blog or this will not last. These are some of Norma's flowers that the deer have missed.

Audit Done!

I guess I worry too much about these things, it turned out to be not all that bad. When I do my taxes I work off my Quicken accounting program, using figures off the registers in there rather than from hard copies of receipts. I just trust the hard copies will be available when and if I need them. When I got the audit notice I panicked. Where are the receipts? Most were in my catch all "2011 Taxes" file in the house and some were still in the safe in the motorhome. It turned out we had them all. We gathered all the receipts, called my Campbell River eye doctor for a letter saying I had to travel to his Courtenay office twice for tests, which he emailed me within the hour. We then called Norma's dental specialist in Victoria for a letter saying she needed an attendant (me) to accompany her to drive her home after her treatments. This allows us to claim travel expense deductions for myself as well as for her. They have no problem writing the letter but they have no way to email it to me so we have to wait for snail mail. Imagine, a modern office and they cannot email a document! We have given this joker about $40K over the past few years. You would think he could afford a copy of Word or Acrobat Pro.

The Wedding:

The wedding plans are moving along. Yesterday we ordered the wine bottle labels from a local printer. Every couple gets two bottles of wine and two hand painted glasses. There will be an open bar as well. We are providing the wine and Linda's sister is painting the glasses. The labels are quite reasonable. $40 for 100, printed four to a sheet. Here is a printer's proof of the label:

This photo is very "them"! I think the labels will work out fine. Brooks is a very lucky man. I keep reminding him of this fact!

Our next job was to go to the local fancy bakery and order the tower of cupcakes that will take the place of a wedding cake. They will be chocolate cupcakes with "beach theme" icing complete with a white chocolate seashell on each one.

Norma and the baker got into a long discussion over what kind of white chocolate to use. I thought chocolate was chocolate. Not so. She then told us there would be a $.25 per cupcake surcharge on the more expensive white chocolate! That settled it! Chocolate is chocolate! Jeesh! All this drama over a damn cupcake!

Thanks for Lunch, Honey!

"Don't mention it. Thank Norma, her roses were delicious!"