Married In Ohio » Technology http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog The life and times of a happily married couple in Ohio. Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:53:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Threes http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/10/02/threes/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/10/02/threes/#comments Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:25:34 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/10/02/threes/ Things (both good and bad) always seem to happen in threes. So when our hard drive went bad, and then less than a week later our video card burned out, we were wondering what would be next. Unfortunately, that question was answered on Saturday. The replacement video card that I ordered from Amazon was DOA. The card actually worked; but the cooling fan didn’t so its life was very, very short. The only “good” thing was that I purchased two cards since it seemed like a good opportunely to upgrade the video card in the computer that the kids used when they were in high school. So, it was more removing and replacing than I had planned but, at the end of the day, we have two working computers. Hopefully, things will go smoothly when the replacement for the replacement finally arrives.

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/10/02/threes/feed/ 0 All In A Good Week http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/05/14/all-in-a-good-week/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/05/14/all-in-a-good-week/#comments Sat, 14 May 2011 21:00:28 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/05/14/all-in-a-good-week/ A good day is when you come home from work and your daughter is home for college and lying out by the pool as if she had never been gone. A not so good day is when you’re sparring and you don’t notice that you forgot to put in your mouth guard until your opponent hits you in the head with a good, hard punch. I’ve had both of those this week.

I’m not superstitious, but I don’t like Friday the 13th. I somehow lost my badge/access card to the office building that I work in on Friday. We’ve haven’t been able to find it even though we’ve turned the house upside down. It will probably turn up after I’ve paid the replacement fee and had a new one made.

The Girl moved herself back from college this week. I didn’t do anything except put money in her account to pay for gas. She’s 18 so she should be independent; but it definitely made me feel a LOT older than I did the day before.

Blogger seems to slowly be returning to life. This whole debacle has been frustrating and I’m just a visitor. I can’t imagine how aggravating it must be for people who use the service; especially the lack of timely information.

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/05/14/all-in-a-good-week/feed/ 4 Obsolete Already http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/04/05/obsolete-already/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/04/05/obsolete-already/#comments Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:15:33 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/04/05/obsolete-already/ I’ve been considering how to dispose of the USB TV tuner I have since it doesn’t work with Windows 7. I hate to get rid of it since it was a Christmas gift from California Girl; but, the company that manufactured it got purchased by a competitor and now there isn’t even a “Windows 7 compatibility” section on their web site. The long promised Windows 7 drivers were never released so I can’t watch TV on the computer anymore; but there is nothing wrong with the actual hardware. We don’t have a TV in our study so it was handy being able to keep up with a ball game while I was doing something productive. I kinda POed that the company that made it abandoned it so soon. I’m sure that they had “business reasons”; but, we still feel cheated, especially since we got less than a year’s use from it. In the end, it’s just one more company that I will never, ever buy anything from again.

P.S. I’ve been struggling with my Droid most of the evening since it hung while I was synching music and corrupted the data on the memory card; so we’ve won’t be publishing our Two for Tuesday post until Wednesday evening. If it wasn’t such PIA it would be funny. Data in the mp3 folder is cross-linked so the music is randomly run together; switching tracks in the middle of songs.

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/04/05/obsolete-already/feed/ 0 2010 A Year In Review http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/01/03/2010-a-year-in-review/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/01/03/2010-a-year-in-review/#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:00:15 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/01/03/2010-a-year-in-review/ January
Had an occasion to do the Snoopy Dance because of something that happened at work.
Took a cool photograph of California Girl with the flowers she received at The Girl’s last senior night.

We reviewed the proofs of The Girl’s senior photographs and made our selections. It was a bit discomforting how rapidly her high school days were winding down.

February
Commemorated the fifth anniversary of MarriedInOhio.Com.
MarriedInOhio.Com went over 2,500,000 visitors.
Took some neat photographs for Two For Tuesday and Half Nekkid Thursday in the aftermath of a huge snowstorm we had.

March
The Girl had an epiphany and decided where she wanted to attend college. It hadn’t really started to sink in how different things were going to be without any kids around.
Decided to see if I could hold up a hat with no hands for Two For Tuesday.

Worked on a special project for California Girl that kept me busy in the evenings. We still found time for our weekly photo session.

April
Changed the image in the “About Us” area of our sidebar. We haven’t changed much wanted to create a new one since the photograph was many years old. We posted the candidates that we were considering for Half Nekkid Thursday.

Went on a 900 mile round road trip with The Girl for an out of state soccer tournament. Then two weeks later, watched The Girl win the last trophy of her club soccer career.

May
Celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. Went out to eat at our favorite restaurant. Posted a photo from our anniversary dinner for Two For Tuesday.

The Girl graduated high school. Then the next day, she registered for classes in the fall and got her college ID.
Got a new camera. Took nekkid photographs of ourselves to test it out.

June
Wore boxing gloves in one of our more interesting Two For Tuesday posts.
The swimming pool is still where we retreat when things aren’t going as well as we would like in the real world.
For Half Nekkid Thursday we did a documentary of our bedcam setup.

July
Created and published our favorite HNT photo post of the year.
Practiced being empty nesters. Posted a NSFW tour of our home for Two For Tuesday culminating with a grand finale in the study for Half Nekkid Thursday.

Photographed and posted a lot of pictures of California Girl in a bikini showing her summer tan lines for Two For Tuesday and HNT.

August
Finally got an Android smartphone. California Girl got a Droid too. We should have upgraded years ago!
Installed a special, mobile friendly theme for Androids and iPhones.
Took both kids to school and officially became empty nesters. Posted about our first pizza night without kids for Two For Tuesday.

September
Posted some cool sexting photographs for Half Nekkid Thursday.

Watched The Girl play soccer at the next level in college. We’re not in Kansan any more, they play rough.
Got another new camera. Again took some NSFW photographs of ourselves to test it.

October
Discovered that I still own a hairbrush despite not needing to use one in years.
Went to Florida for vacation. Posted some photos from our trip for Two For Tuesday and Half Nekkid Thursday.

Added a new hard drive to the server. The old one was getting filled up since we have posted so many pictures over the years.

November
Took another “instant favorite” photograph of California Girl.
California Girl changed the color of her hair. Heather was the first person to notice.

Decorated the Christmas tree on the Saturday after Thanksgiving now that both kids are in school. Posted a NSFW Christmas card style photo for Two For Tuesday.

December
Made an animated slide show of some of our recent photographs using JavaScript.

Click here to stop the animation. We also posted a more traditional slide show for our Christmas tree Half Nekkid Thursday.

Get Adobe Flash player to see this video.

California Girl and I both got new glasses. We featured them in an artistic Two For Tuesday post.

Created our and posted first high definition video for Two For Tuesday. It was also our first movie in FLV format.

Get Adobe Flash player to see this video.

MarriedInOhio.Com went over 3,000,000 visitors, a milestone we noted in our Christmas Wish Half Nekkid Thursday post. It’s definitely not 2005 anymore so we removed our hit counter widget.

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2011/01/03/2010-a-year-in-review/feed/ 2 We Are Pleased http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/12/13/we-are-pleased/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/12/13/we-are-pleased/#comments Tue, 14 Dec 2010 04:10:03 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/12/13/we-are-pleased/ California Girl and I both picked up or new eyeglasses today. They were very expensive which we expected; but they look very stylish which is good since we need to wear them all of the time. We are both still getting used to the new prescriptions; but my vision is much improved and her California Girl’s vision is better too although she did not have as much of a change as I did. Glasses lenses are a lot more high tech than they used to be. And, if your vision is like outs, it really does make a difference. They don’t reverse the ravages of time; but they make it a little bit more manageable. It was definitely was easier for me to type this post. It’s been easier for me to use my Droid phone too. We are pleased. We’re not sure how to do it but we’d like to display them in one of our upcoming photo shoots.

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/12/13/we-are-pleased/feed/ 4 The Good And Bad Continues http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/27/the-good-and-bad-continues/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/27/the-good-and-bad-continues/#comments Sat, 27 Nov 2010 14:00:36 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/27/the-good-and-bad-continues/ Last Saturday, I posted about having a productive day and how that’s both good and bad. The past few days have been more of the same. 

  • We ate much too much at my mom’s house on Thursday. That’s good and bad for obvious reasons. Even though Saturday is typically our off day, we’re going to go work out.
  • I’ve rebuilt and restored The Girl’s computer which is good; but it took a lot longer than it should have.
  • The kids wanted to play Nintendo and discovered that the old TV that the game console is connected too wouldn’t turn on. That’s a bad thing; however, the TV set is from the mid 90s and we’ve gotten plenty of use out of it so it won’t be too painful to replace it which is good. It will just be kinda sad taking it too the drop off to be recycled.
  • We plan on putting up the Christmas tree today. We used to do it in December; but, since The Boy went to college, we’ve been doing it over Thanksgiving. It’s good to get it set up; but it’s sad that the kids will be going back to school so soon.
  • Motorola has my dead Droid. It should be on its way back to me soon. That’s a good thing; however, I am considering not returning replacement I bought with the intention of returning it to the store for a full refund, and giving it to The Girl instead. That would make it an expensive Christmas gift which is not so good.
]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/27/the-good-and-bad-continues/feed/ 4 A Productive Day http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/20/a-productive-day/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/20/a-productive-day/#comments Sun, 21 Nov 2010 04:45:34 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/20/a-productive-day/ Today was a productive day, which, for a Saturday in November, is both good and bad.

  • The replacement part arrived on Friday so I fixed the turn signal switch on the car that The Girl usually drives. Good that its fixed; but bad that I spent much of the morning upside down underneath the dash board.
  • I finally finished installing apps (including a backup utility) on my “temporary” Droid phone. I also got a sweet new case for it from OtterBox. Good that it’s all set up; but bad that I needed to do it.
  • I also got the package with the dead one ready to ship to Motorola on Monday. I don’t have phone insurance and it’s been longer than 30 days so I have to handle the warranty replacement myself. Plus have to exchange the screen protector I scraped off the defective phone for a new one so I got that package ready too. Bad that my phone died after just 3-months; but good that, ultimately, everything will be repaired or replaced warranty.
  • I ordered a new hard drive for The Girl’s laptop computer to replace the one that burned out. Good that it was easy to find; but bad that she didn’t listen to us about covering up the vents that let cool air in.
  • I also discovered that the Rescue and Recovery CD came with it can’t “see” backups made with a later version. So, I’ll have to spend several hours installing Windows 7 so that I can install the disk-based version of the R&R software just to overwrite everything with a backup image that is (hopefully intact) on her external hard drive. Bad that they make it so hard.

I would have much rather spent a totally unproductive day watching football on television.

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/11/20/a-productive-day/feed/ 6 No More Spam http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/30/no-more-spam/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/30/no-more-spam/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:00:26 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/30/no-more-spam/ We were drowning in spam emails so I used some of my “extra” free time this weekend to configure a spam filter for our mail server. We’ve had a few spam messages get through; but nothing like what we were getting. I had forgotten how pleasant it was to start my email client and only see messages that I’m interested in reading. (And unlike beforehand, it’s now practicable to synch emails to my phone.) It’s a shame that spam filters are required. The only “good” thing is that since everyone is using them, we don’t really have to worry about false positives.

On a completely different subject, does anyone have any suggestions for our next photo shoot? We’d like to do something a bit different to commemorate being empty nesters.

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/30/no-more-spam/feed/ 4 Another Distraction http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/21/another-distraction/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/21/another-distraction/#comments Sun, 22 Aug 2010 01:00:34 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/21/another-distraction/ California Girl got a Droid phone too! She had been planning to keep her old phone for a while longer; but really liked the capabilities of the Phones with the Android OS, so we purchased a smartphone for her on Friday. After having a basic feature phone for so many years, the technology is amazing. It was a bit finicky to set up but it’s a very useful device. It will come in handy when we’re on the road visiting the kids; especially if we need to use the mobile banking app to transfer some money into one of their accounts. We spent a while today and last night getting it set up. The Android MarketPlace was down for a so we couldn’t install some of the apps that help with setup. It looks a bit intimidating at first but it really is easy to use. She’s really happy that she decided to upgrade.

P.S. We definitely plan to post photos of her showing off her new phone next week. :D

]]> http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/21/another-distraction/feed/ 6 Going Mobile http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/15/going-mobile/ http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/15/going-mobile/#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 03:00:30 +0000 Midwestern City Boy http://www.marriedinohio.com/blog/2010/08/15/going-mobile/ Since I recently got an Android phone, I’ve become interested in how this site looks on mobile devices. For now, I’ve decided to use WPtouch. It only works with iPhones/iPods, Androids and Blackberries; but there aren’t many (if any) other 3G/4G phones that can effectively browse a multimedia heavy site such as ours anyway. If you’re browsing on a mobile device and have any problems, please let us know. And if you prefer viewing the regular layout, the control to switch between themes scroll is at the bottom of the page.

P.S. For the past month or so we’ve been drowning in comment spam, so I created a script to automatically delete “spam” comments on posts more than one month old. That makes the spam moderation queue much easier to for us to manage. We haven’t had a single real comment erroneously marked as spam on older posts; but if for some reason your comment doesn’t show up, please accept our apology in advance. It should never happen to comments posted by real people anyway.

And for those of you who visit using regular computers and haven’t had any problems commenting, here is a rare NSFW photograph of #cg wearing her eyeglasses. (It’s not unusual for her to wear glasses; but she usually takes them off in potentially naughty situations).

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