Turning off IPv6 might fix WiFi connectivity in Windows 7

I got a call from our daughter on her way to Fairbanks, panicked when her new Windows 7 notebook wouldn’t connect to WiFi on the plane or at the Anchorage airport. She also said she had the same problem with one of our routers at home.

After sleuthing around on various tech support FAQs, KBs, and forums, I learned that Windows 7 and some routers don’t get along with the default Windows 7 network installation of IPv6.

I have a WiFi adapter on my desktop and voila! I experienced a similar issue. I hadn’t ever tried WiFi on the desktop because it is wired to the network. With the default settings I could see the router, but whenever I tried to connect to it, it would say it could not. As soon as I went in and turned off IPv6 protocol for the adapter, I was able to connect.

So for anyone needing step-by-step, here it is:

1. Go to Control Panel –> Network and Internet –> Network and Sharing Center

2. You should see something like the following.

3. On the left side, click Change Adapter Settings. You should see a window with a list of network adapters.

4. Right-click on the Wireless Network Connection item. If you see more than one, you should select the hardware one (not any that read “virtual”). Select Properties from the popup menu.

5. Deselect the TCP/IPv6 item and click OK.

6. Try to connect. Hopefully this will solve the WiFi connectivity issue you are experiencing.

ESV Online Study Bible

I’ve been using the ESV (English Standard Version) Online Study Bible for a couple of months now and I am quite pleased with it. Crossway, the publisher, just upgraded the site and added some new features, including the ability to invite five people to share the purchase. Yes, it does cost $19.99, but it is a lifetime purchase and not a subscription. Or you can purchase a print version of the ESV Study Bible and the online version is included.

The purchase provides access to the full Study Bible notes, articles, and maps. It also allows you to add your own notes and highlights. You can access the Bible text and reading plans without a purchase.

The site is currently not compatible with iPad/iPhones because it uses Flash, but the FAQ says that they are working on a mobile product.

I find the $19.99 purchase cost to be a bargain for what you get. More information on the ESV Study Bible can be found here. The online study Bible can be viewed here.

One-month reflection on the iPad

I’ve owned the iPad for a little over a month now; enough time I think to provide some informed thoughts on it. The reader must realize that this is meant to be a reflection on my experience based on my needs and priorities. Your mileage may vary.

I initially decided to purchase it because I wanted a web-connected device more functional than a smartphone and more portable than a notebook PC or even a netbook. With it I also ordered a dock, a Bluetooth keyboard, a case, and a camera connection kit. My aims were to travel light, be able to offload photos from a digital camera, share photos and words while on the road, and have portable access to books. For me, music and videos are not that important.

First of all, I love it. It has replaced nearly all my PC use. For e-mail and web browsing it is completely adequate for my needs. I love that very functional apps can be had for so little cost – nearly all under $10, many under $5, and some very good apps for free.

I think the Bluetooth keyboard is an essential companion. Yes, it is possible (much more than on an iPhone) to use the touchscreen keyboard, but I’d hate to think of having to rely on that for longer documents. The keyboard is very compact, thin, light, and adds very little weight nor takes up much space in a carry-on.

If I were to get a second chance, I would probably skip the Apple case and opt for a third-party one. The case works but one of the big issues is that it is not compatible with the dock. I had to perform some surgery on the case in order to get the iPad to connect and stay on the dock. Even with that the connection is somewhat tenuous.

I find the dock to be worth the cost. It stands up the iPad securely in portrait mode. There is a audio line-out on the dock so if you have external speakers you can leave it permanently connected to the dock.

The camera connection kit is an essential accessory for on-the-road photo work. The photos are imported unaltered; i.e., full resolution JPEGs or RAW. The main issue I have with the iPad’s photo features is that I haven’t yet found a way to upload full-resolution photos from the iPad to an online service. All the apps I’ve found reduce the resolution. The only way to access the full resolution images is from a PC (or Mac) after connecting via the cable. The PC sees the iPad as an external photo device. With the camera connection kit, the iPad functions as an external photo storage device. A comparable standalone unit can run $300 to $700 and doesn’t offer the kind of editing, touch-up, and online features that iPad apps provide.

Early on I discovered how useful the iPad is in the kitchen. Whether on the dock or propped up with the case, it functions quite well as a recipe book. Unlike a book, you don’t have to weight the pages to keep them open. The recipe doesn’t go across pages, but rather all that needs to be done is swipe the finger to scroll around the recipe. Not only that but many recipe apps (I use the free Epicurious) generate shopping lists that can be used on the iPad or e-mailed to another device (I’ve e-mailed the list to my BlackBerry).

Another unexpected discovery is the use of the iPad as a full-featured voice navigation GPS system. We are taking a vacation shortly and I looked into renting a GPS unit on our rental car. What I discovered is that for the duration it was cheaper to purchase a unit. As I began researching GPS units, I discovered that the iPad can do the same thing for much less. The GPS Drive HD app can be purchased for $2.99 and voice-navigation is $2.99 for 30 days. Since we live on an island and have no need for GPS navigation except when we go on trips outside of the area, this is much more cost effective for us.

I found a free piano app, Virtuoso, that is quite usable. The latest update turns one of the two keyboards around so that two people can play a duet on the iPad. Who needs to carry around a guitar when you can have an iPad?

A travel advantage of the iPad over a notebook PC is that according to the TSA web site, it is treated more like a phone; i.e., I should not need to take it out and have it scanned separately. (Btw, netbooks are also supposed to fall into this same category.)

I’ve already commented on the iPad’s usefulness in sermon delivery. While browsing apps yesterday I came across another app, a scrolling teleprompter, that may be useful for people who manuscript sermons.

Is the iPad worth it? For my needs, the answer is a resounding yes. Since my notebook PC is still non-functional (waiting for a rework shipping label to arrive…) the iPad is my portable PC.

Blogging from an iPad

I finally got the last piece of the iPad equipment I ordered back in May. This afternoon I picked up the Camera Connection Kit.



So here it is. I used Photogene to crop and adjust the photo, used iPicasso to upload the photo, and Blogspace to create and post this entry. (Only Photogene is a native iPad app. The other two are iPhone apps.) It is more work than what I'm used to, but I don't seem to have too much of an option at this time. Perhaps someone will create a good, native iPad blog editing app. (I think I saw one, but the reviews were not very good.)

Using iPad for a sermon

I got the iPad I ordered last Thursday and have been playing with it. It really is a cool little device.

I had earlier been asked to provide the sermon at the Presbyterian Church on Father’s Day Sunday. This provided me with an a timely opportunity to see if I could give a sermon using just an iPad.

I used Idea Sketch (free) to draw up an outline.

I used Instapaper Pro ($4.99) to download Wikipedia’s Father’s Day article (I did examine the referenced primary sources, just to be sure the article was correct) from which I would provide a brief history of Father’s Day.

And finally I used OliveTree’s BibleReader (free) and the ESV Study Bible ($39.99). With the combination I could see both the Bible text and associated commentary, plus I could pop up my own personal notes that I had made earlier.

Armed with these three components, with flicks and taps, I delivered the sermon. Overall it worked out quite well.

Notebook PC is malfunctioning

For six months now my notebook PC has been exhibiting increasing problems. This past week it finally got to the place where it has become nearly unusable.

The first problem was its built-in WiFi began to fail intermittently. More often than not, the hardware failed to be recognized at all and wouldn’t show up in the list of known hardware. I could live with this problem by connecting a LAN cable or using a separate WiFi receiver. I contacted HP support but they gave me the usual try this and that, which I already had.

The second problem was that it began to randomly shut itself down with no warning. It seemed to happen most often when the CPU was running at its max and when the physical area near the CPU became very hot. I’m not sure why this didn’t happen when the PC was new, but it began to happen and with increasing frequency. Again, I could sort of live with this as long as I was careful to not run too many applications simultaneously.

However, the third problem introduced an unlivable problem. I had placed the PC on standby mode and when I tried to wake it, the power returned but operation did not. I forced a shutdown and tried restarting, but it would not. I looked up the support pages and found instructions on performing a hard reset, which I did, but it didn’t seem to do any good. The instructions also described a way of forcing boot into the BIOS to run a system check. I did that and the instructions actually worked.

I ran the system check and there the fourth issue appeared. The comprehensive hard disk check reported that the drive needed to be replaced. After running the diagnostics, I was able to boot back into Windows, so I backed up my data onto an external HD. Unfortunately I discovered my desktop PC doesn’t recognize this HD, so I had to back up the data to a different external HD.

With the data backed up I looked to see if the extended service plan I had originally purchased (through Office Depot) was still valid. Fortune was with me this time: I still have about five weeks left until its expiration! I called up the service and described the problems listed above. I didn’t get the runaround that I was afraid I would get (and expected) but I was promptly told that a service order had been opened and they would be shipping me a box in which to return the unit.

I am now working on my desktop PC which is not really adequate for all that I need. It too has some issues, mainly with the Operating System, so it is not a permanent solution. It doesn’t have a camera, speakers or microphone, so I am not able to run Skype on it, for instance.

I hadn’t been doing a whole lot with photography recently, and one reason is because of my various computer issues. I can’t run Photoshop on the desktop PC, and because of the suspected CPU/heat issues I didn’t want to try it on my notebook PC.

Since the beginning of the year I had been considering getting a new desktop PC for precisely the reason stated; however, I did not sense a decisive conviction that I should do it. I had been praying about it for weeks and I continued to be ambivalent about what I should do. It was during the Memorial Day weekend when I developed a strong feeling that instead of a desktop PC, I should instead go with the Apple iPad. Now I seem to understand why that happened. I most likely will not have the notebook PC back before we take off on our summer travels and the iPad will now serve as its replacement. This whole incident is quite annoying, but it appears now that things have and will work out okay.

D-Link DIR-655 “N” Wireless Router

I got this router from Amazon a few weeks ago. It is a vast improvement over the old one in terms of manageability and reliability. Setting it up and replacing the old with this one was a breeze.

I most appreciate its improved reliability. For some reason the old one would choke and I would have to go down to the garage once, twice, and sometimes half a dozen times a day to perform a cold reset (i.e., unplug from wall, wait a few seconds, plug it back in). With this new one, whenever something results in network connectivity loss it appears to automatically reset. I have not had to go down to the garage to do a reset with this new router.

The second thing I appreciate is the better logs that it provides. It rates network events as Informational, Warning, or Critical. It logs more types of events than the old one did.

The third thing is the integration with SecureSpot 2.0 (fee applies). SecureSpot provides additional single-point network management for devices that connect through the router. It provides website URL filtering and network device control that all devices go through. Additionally there is client-based malware and intrusion protection that can be installed on up to three clients (extra fee for additional clients). I was having problems running Microsoft’s Windows Live Family Safety on some of the PCs in our household, so a non-client method of filtering sites is quite welcome.

The final feature I find useful is the ability to enable a Guest Zone. What this does is it enables a second SSID for guests to connect to the Internet without having visibility into the rest of your personal network (though the option is available to route network traffic between the two zones). What this means is that I can enable an unprotected wireless connection during the times we have guests over (SecureSpot and router logs still identify connections from new devices) without having to compromise the rest of the network or having to setup the connection for each guest.

My conclusion: This router exceeded my expectations. Your mileage may vary. At $94.95 (currently at Amazon) it was a worthwhile upgrade.

Plug: PC Vulnerability Scanner

This post is for Windows users. If you use something else, consider yourself fortunate, at least for now. :)

There are some nasty bits of malware (MAL-icious soft-WARE) out there. Even if you keep Windows patched and updated, how about all the other pieces of software that come into use as you browse the web? Or how about all the applications that access the Internet?

Secunia has a free (for personal use) vulnerability scanner that will identify vulnerable apps and help you secure your system. The scan could take a while on older/slower systems. It found quite a few unpatched apps on my XP system and found a couple of my Vista PC.

This app reminds me of work I did a decade ago for Symantec: Norton Systemworks and the LiveUpdate Pro feature. What you see in Secunia’s scanner isn’t really that much different in concept.

Update your Windows PCs

If you’re using a Windows PC, there is a critical security patch that you shouldn’t wait to install. If you have automatic updates turned on, the patch will eventually install, but you shouldn’t wait for that to happen.

If you’re using Windows XP, start Internet Explorer and under the Tools menu there is a Windows Update option. Follow the instructions and install the patch. It will require a restart of the operating system.

If you’re using Vista, open Control Panel, select Check for Updates, and then on the left column, click the Check for Updates to make sure you are getting the latest information. Follow the instructions.

The technical data is available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx

Space Heater Plug-in Thermostat

I’m “plugging” (pun fully intended) a product here that I recently started using. It’s the Lux WIN100 Smart Temp 5-2 Programmable Outlet Thermostat.

Electric space heaters typically have some kind of the thermostat, but after a year of use I’ve discovered that their settings appear to be relative to the ambient temperature. For instance, our dining room can get quite warm on a sunny day, but the heater continues to run, even though when the ambient temps are lower the heater would have shut off, and the room ends up way too warm.

At one of the weekly coffees with the other ministers I learned that plug-in thermostats are available for around $30-40. I looked it up on Amazon.com and found one that seemed to fit my needs. I ordered three (because I’ve learned that around here it’s often good to have spares of hard-to-replace items) of the units (inexpensive flat shipping for any number of items, direct from the mfg.) and received them last week. I’ve put two in service and they’ve been doing very well at maintaining a constant temperature.

I used to have temperature swings of up to 10-degrees between nights and days, but with this it just sits steady within 1- to 2-degrees. I no longer have to fiddle frequently with the thermostats. I have a feeling this will, in the long run, save some on the heating costs.

The one catch is that the space heater must be able to remain in an On position (most are), or start out On when plugged in. I have one electronically switched unit that defaults to an Off setting so I can’t use the thermostat with this particular heater.

Highly recommended.

First music recording attempt

This evening I completed my first attempt at producing a music recording with my PC-based equipment. In an earlier post I mentioned how the audio interface seemed to produce annoying clicks in the audio stream. I tried all sorts of things to isolate and diagnose the problem. The final conclusion is that it’s actually the USB port or the PC itself. That’s good and bad, because the interface hardware seems to be fine. But it’s much more difficult and costly to replace the PC (which I’m not going to do). I’ve been able to reduce the interference to about once a minute or so, but not completely eliminate it. That is rather annoying because I have to record multiple takes and then replace the offending audio sections with clean ones.

I’d been working on producing MIDI versions of several praise and worship songs contained in a children’s choir collection. I took a set of those, recorded the audio outputs, and then I layered some of my vocals on top.

The final result isn’t spectacular, but I think it’s passable. There are some sections where the audio levels are a bit too high and clipped a bit. It’s not too bad in the original (uncompressed 73MB in size), but in the lower-quality MP3 (1.5MB), the clipping is more noticeable. I still need to get more experience in controlling the input levels, the outgoing mix levels, being more consistent while singing into the microphone, etc. to get a better final result.

Click Here for MP3.

Audio, video, computers

Yesterday was a bit like Christmas morning, I suppose. I got a number of items: an audio interface for my notebook PC, a travel WiFi router/access point, and Elise’s dad got the FTA satellite dish installed and connected.

First off, the audio interface. I got the M-Audio Fast Track Ultra 8x8 USB 2.0 audio interface. I had originally tried to get the Alesis MultiMix 8 USB 2.0. This is the one where I got the earlier USB 1.1 product (which is still sitting next to me because I still have not received the return shipping label from Alesis and/or inMusic, and I am getting more and more annoyed with both companies. I keep contacting customer service but they don’t seem very responsive. I wasn’t going to name names, but it’s been about a week now and it’s getting ridiculous).

So far I’m fairly pleased with the M-Audio unit. It does what I need, which is to bring in my synth audio and microphone input (has phantom power, so I no longer need to use a battery in the mic) into the PC for recording. It’s able to record 8 separate input tracks at up to 96KHz/24-bits. I like being able to monitor with headphones separately from the main output.

The one thing that I’ve noticed, and not likely the interface’s fault, is that the connection between the synth and the interface is noisy. I think it has to do something with noisy power and/or ground loop with the PC. I suspect both are problems. When I record the synth output, I get occasional clipping noises. I wondered if recording the synth wouldn’t be possible, but then I tried recording a separate take on a new track and cutting/pasting/replacing the clipped measures and it seemed to work well.

The travel WiFi router is the D-Link DWL-G730AP. It’s a tiny device and comes with a nice carrying case. I had to adjust some networking stuff this morning to get everything to function the way I wanted them to. The Vista notebook I was using to configure the router stopped communicating with the Internet after I got done. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. I fiddled with the firewall and location settings to no avail. Restarting seemed to clear everything up.

There are two reasons why I chose this device. The first is that some places where I stay when I travel don’t have WiFi but have wired Ethernet connections. I have at least two devices (and there will be three) that would like to connect to the Internet wirelessly. Being able to take a little router with me would be handy. Not only that, but I’m never too sure about the network security provided by hotels and such. A router is another way of isolating my private network from the rest of the world.

The second reason is that the original router doesn’t adequately cover our house. The cable modem and network hubs are located in the garage, which is way off on one extreme corner of the building. The opposing corner of the house has pretty poor coverage. This router, used as an AP, can extend the network coverage. This is important now, because Shelley has a new notebook PC (on loan from IDEA – the distance education school district) and her room is about as far as one can get from the main router. With the D-Link now sitting in my office area, the whole house has pretty good coverage.

Finally, the satellite dish. It receives FTA (Free to Air) channels – primarily for some of the Adventist channels such as Hope and Loma Linda Broadcasting (though reception on this is rather poor due to location). The dish is located just behind the house. A hold was drilled in the office closet outside wall on the second floor (it’s conveniently located under roofs) and then the cable sent down to the dish.

The trick was trying to get Windows Media Center Edition 2005 to recognize the signal. I could get Nero’s video capture utility to see the signal (but no audio), but MCE didn’t like it. I searched the Web for some possible hints. I came across the tip that in order for MCE to recognize the S-Video signal, the IR-blaster has to be connected to the IR-receiver. Fortunately, in recent weeks while going through boxes from our move 2 years ago, I located the small box with the IR accessories. As soon as I connected the IR-blaster and worked through the setup steps, the input was recognized and I was able to get the satellite output showing on the MCE PC.

Now you know what I’ve been up to during the last day.

The last several days have been very rainy. The forecast for today was supposed to be more rain. But the clouds broke apart and some sun is coming through. The early dawn (about 7:00 a.m. now) was quite nice. The sunlight was filtering through the trees to the back of our house, backlighting the leaves. I might have gone out had I not been starting to prepare some waffles for breakfast.

Sermon: We Have Seen the Lord – Part 4: Signs, Sight, Faith

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio. Click HERE for PowerPoint slides. Click HERE for PowerPoint Viewer.)

This morning, I had the “opportunity” to use the recording capability on my new notebook PC. I say “opportunity” because the only reason was that I forgot to bring along my digital voice recorder. Since I had never used the sound recording capabilities on the PC prior to this, I didn’t know how it would turn out. The results were quite good, though the file size was immense. It took a long time to load into my audio editor for post processing, and it took much longer to convert to an MP3 and save it out. So even though the quality is probably better, the file from the voice recorder is much easier to work with. Anyway, enough of that.

Today’s sermon is the conclusion of my four-part series on John chapter 20. I take a bit of a detour away from John and try to place the concluding verses of chapter 20 into a broader context of what it could mean for today’s Christians. I talk about how Jesus and the writers of the New Testament foretold of false christs and a counterfeit second coming, and how Jesus’ words of blessing to those who come to believe without seeing might bear relevance for us. I discuss what I believe this counterfeit and deception could involve and how we might prepare to meet it.

Finding chords and transcribing music

I came across a brand new song, released just a few days ago, on Rhapsody. The song is "Hold On (To Love)" by Angie Ewing.

Now what happens with me is that when I hear a new song, I first judge it by the music style and the chords and harmonies. If the melodies and harmonies are interesting, the chords are creative, and the style fits my tastes, it's only then that I take a closer look at say, the words. This one immediately caught my attention.

The easy part was listening to it several more times to transcribe the words. (No, I can't reproduce them here.) The theme is about holding on to Love (Jesus/God, though never explicitly mentioned in the song) and Faith through life's storms, and that Love will hold on to you. It was written in remembrance of Hurricane Katrina, now almost three years ago.

The next task was to transcribe the chords. That's always been the time-consuming part. I'm not an auditory learner. I'm much more of a visual learner. So listening and transcribing is the reverse of what I believe my skills are.

I spent a good deal of Sunday afternoon searching the web for any automated method for extracting chords (and even individual parts) from a recording. I did find several pieces of software that claimed to do just that. All of them were available as demo copies, either limited in song duration or in total use. Full versions for purchase ranged from $39.99 to $129.99.

I downloaded each one and ran some tunes (MP3, WMA) through each. Let's just say I was impressed that they were even able to get some of the chords correct, but I was not impressed enough to think they were going to save me any time. Maybe they would work on simpler tunes with more clearly defined parts and chords. For the tunes I used, they missed and got wrong more chords than they got right.

It turned out time and my own ears were much better at extracting the chords and the melody than any software solution. Perhaps in a few years the software will catch up, but I'm not holding my breath... yet.

My Cell (Mobile) Phone Works Again

I got the replacement SIM card from T-Mobile yesterday, registered it, and now my phone works again. I felt so lost without it... :) I don't wear a watch anymore, so the phone acts as my timepiece. Anyway, my usual mobile number works again.

I was once again amazed at the responsiveness of T-Mobile support. I accidentally hung-up on the first call, so I called a second time. Both times there were no hold times in getting through to a real live person.

Prepaid T-Mobile SIM works in Petersburg

When we went down to the Lower 48 over 90 days ago (this'll make sense in just a bit), I purchased a prepaid T-Mobile SIM card for an old T-Mobile (actually, VoiceStream) phone that I had lying around. But it wouldn't work back at home because of some roaming issue. I tried and the phone wouldn't get a signal. It was prepaid, just $25, so it was just fine as a throwaway.

This morning, just because I was curious, I plugged the prepaid SIM card into the unlocked, previous BlackBerry device (7100t) that I have lying around, taking up space and collecting dust. Surprise, surprise, it received a signal. When I went to the T-Mobile site to check on the account, I discovered that the minutes left on it had expired 2 days ago. (They're good for 90 days.)

I refilled it with $10 worth of minutes, because I still was skeptical about whether it could actually send and receive calls. (The coverage map says prepaid doesn't work here.) As soon as I purchased the refill, it received a couple of text messages. I was able to call out. So it looks like this prepaid will work as a temporary measure until I get the replacement SIM card for my primary number.

I don't know why it works. Is it because my BlackBerry 7100t is unlocked? Is it because this device supports more communication frequencies than the older Motorola? Is it because AT&T got their connection with their acquired Cingular/Celluar One/Dobson networks working more seamlessly? For whatever reason, T-Mobile prepaid appears to work in Alaska now, or at least this part of it.

Data and applications migrated

Seven hours later...

I think I have all the key applications and critical data moved over and accessible on my desktop PC.

• Outlook and all of its data stores, e-mail account settings, etc.
• Internet Explorer favorites and RSS feeds
• BlackBerry Desktop
• MS Money and data file
• OneNote files

In addition to SyncToy mentioned in the previous post, I had the first opportunity to use Windows Live OneCare Backup's restore function to bring over the Favorites and RSS feeds. It worked very well once I figured out how to get to them. OneCare's Backup also offered a little peace of mind at the start of all this because even if the laptop became non-functional before I could get SyncToy to move the data, at least the backup data was less than a week old.

The display hardware is definitely on the way out. When the laptop has been turned off for a while, it works for a few minutes after I turn it back on, but the problem seems to be getting worse each time. I think if I take it into one of the commercial freezers in town and run the laptop, it might continue to work for a little while longer. I think the operating heat adversely affects it. The problem with laptops is that you can't just replace failed hardware. One big plus for desktops, even today.

It was a good laptop -- 10 6-1/2 years old (I must have been thinking of another laptop). It's probably lasted about twice as long a couple years longer than it was meant to. So not too many tears shed. But I sure didn't need to work on this for half the day...

I researched some replacements, and it looks like a good one can be had for between $900 and $1200. It isn't quite how I wanted to spend the "economic stimulus" funds... I had hoped the laptop would last one more year. I'll see if I can function without a laptop, and if I can, I'll likely postpone purchasing a replacement until next year.

One reason I upgraded my BlackBerry handheld was to try to get by on short-duration travels without having to take along a full PC. It looks like I won't have much choice in the matter now.

Now I can return to my original plan for the day: to work on tomorrow's sermon.

It isn't Friday the 13th, is it?

My 10-year old (or almost 10) laptop showed signs of going kaput this morning. It looks like the display hardware is going out on me. This is the PC where I have all my sermon stuff, all my e-mails, all our finance data, etc. In other words, it's the most critical PC in the house.

This being Friday and all, it's the one day I can't afford to have it go out because I still have to put together tomorrow's sermon. I tried last night, but the thoughts didn't flow and I was feeling rather sleepy.

Anyway, I'm working on getting all of the data moved onto my desktop PC (the one I'm writing this on) using Microsoft's SyncToy utility. After that I can at least get to the sermon files and notes (they're in OneNote, which I already have installed here). As for e-mail, I'll make do with the BlackBerry and Windows Live Mail to access my e-mail accounts until I get Outlook installed.

Microsoft Money is another issue. Even if I could find the original installation disc, it's now 4 years old and Microsoft doesn't support it. I'll have to purchase and download a new version, I guess.

As for the laptop... Anyone who offers free or low cost shipping will certainly be on my list from where I purchase a replacement. Sigh...

This being Independence Day, I had planned to go out and at least watch the parade - even if it is kind of wet and rainy. But with the problems of this morning, I may not even get to do that today.

You're welcome to join my pity party today...

The benefits of RAW image capture

There were a few images that I got yesterday that, on first look seemed to have completely blown highlights. But after using Capture One and dialing down the exposure, I saw that sufficient details were recoverable. Here are a couple of examples (click to see full resolution crops):

As shot

-1 stop

-2 stops

Above combined and worked in Photoshop

Full photo

 

As shot

-1 stop

-2 stops

Above combined and worked in Photoshop

 
Full photo

 

There are several disadvantages to RAW capture. The first is that it takes up more space than JPEGs. The second is that it takes more time (sometimes much more) on the computer for post-processing to make the images look like what I saw with my eyes. The third is that with action shots where I might be shooting continuously, RAW not only quickly fills up the memory card, because of its size it takes longer to write to the card; consequently it more quickly reaches the point where the camera buffer is full and continuous shots start to lag.

For landscapes and nature, I find RAW capture useful in preserving a wider dynamic range. If you have a camera that supports RAW capture and haven't really used it, you might consider it for some applications.

Logitech VX Nano Wireless Notebook Mouse

I've had this mouse for almost a month now and I have to say it is one great mouse.

It was about a year ago that the right mouse button died on a wired Microsoft notebook mouse. It's amazing how much use that right mouse button gets. Fortunately on notebook PCs, usually there's another way to perform right mouse button clicks. It was still quite inconvenient, however. I wasn't about to pay a king's ransom in Petersburg for a replacement mouse.

The day after we arrived in Oregon, I made a beeline to BestBuy to look at the wireless mice available. I looked at the different ones, but choosing the Logitech VX Nano was a no-brainer. The feature that was key to my decision was the USB receiver. It plugs in and only extends out maybe 1/4 inch. There is no need to unplug it when moving it about. There's no fear of bumping it and damaging it. If there is ever a need to unplug it, there is convenient storage for it inside the battery compartment.

The next feature that clinched the deal was the on/off switch located on the bottom of the mouse. Why has it taken so long for a wireless mouse to evolve to have this convenient feature, I wonder?

The feel of it is very good in my hands. I don't have huge hands, so a smaller, notebook-oriented size works much better. I have one of the original Microsoft wireless mice somewhere in storage. It was a good mouse, but I always thought it was a little too big for my hands.

I haven't personally seen great advantages of some of the other touted features such as the laser technology, or the hyper-fast scrolling. The forward/back buttons are somewhat more convenient in navigating web sites than using the browser forward/back buttons (or right mouse click and selecting the popup menu item). The carrying case is nice especially during transport inside a notebook bag to prevent more than necessary scratches on the mouse body. The unit also comes with a wired USB receiver for those that also want to use this with a desktop PC. (I suppose one could try to mouse in both notebook and desktop PCs at the same time... I just thought of it...)

You might be getting the impression that I really like this mouse, and you would be right. It's one I'd highly recommend to anyone looking for a new notebook (or even a desktop) mouse.