The Windows 10 Giveaway

As of Wednesday Microsoft started giving away Windows 10.  What would you be giving away if you upgrade?  Privacy?  Security?  Performance? #UpgradeYourWorld

According to the Free Software Foundation¹:

• Windows' 10's privacy policy asserts the privilege to sell almost any information it wants about users, even creating a unique advertising ID for each user to sweeten the deal.
• Microsoft announced that, starting with Windows 10, it will begin forcing lower-paying users to test less-secure new updates before giving higher-paying users the option of whether or not to adopt them.
• Microsoft is reported to give the NSA special security tip-offs that it could use to crack into Windows computers.

"What am I supposed to do about it?" I hear you ask.

• Don't upgrade to Windows 10.
• Begin to use Free Software that runs under Windows.  Here's a small excerpt of all that's available.
• Download and try a free Linux Live CD.
• Install one of the many free Linux Distros on a spare computer.
• Spread the word about Free Software using responsible social media.
• Buy a computer that has a free Linux Distro pre-installed on it.

Close Windows, Open Doors

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¹ https://www.fsf.org/windows

Undo the Default App Selection in Android

Here's the scenario....  Your Android device presents you with a choice of apps to complete an action with.  You're supposed to select the app and then select either "Just Once" or "Always."  Either way the app opens to complete the action.

If you selected "Just Once" you'll have to choose again the next time you need to complete that same action.  That might seem annoying.  But what if it's the wrong choice?  If you choose "Always" you won't get to choose again, at least not easily.  And if the app cannot complete the action successfully, what then?

According to many lame blog posts and webzine articles, it's "easy" to change your mind after choosing "Always."  They say to just press the app's "Clear Defaults" button.  Here's one such article on AndroidCentral.

Fortunately AndroidCentral is swarming with brilliant users who are much more sophisticated than the folks who write the articles.  I say "fortunately" because when I needed to change the option of using Photos for downloading an image file attachment, the article's advice was useless because Photos' "Clear Defaults" button was greyed out.

A user called Siddhartha Gupta suggested that to remove Photos as the default app, it's necessary to change the setting for Google+.  That didn't work, either.

A user called ChromeJob pointed out that there's "a 'reset app preferences' in the action overflow button. This appears to reset ALL default app choices at once."  If only it were that easy for me.  It didn't work.

The thing that finally worked for me was to revert to the factory version of Photos by pressing the "Uninstall Updates" button.  After doing that, I was presented with a choice of two other apps to use.  The idea to alter Photos' version came to me after reading a comment byGrillMouster who stated that "when any of those apps receive an update the ["Just Once" / "Always"] dialog will pop up again, even if you had previously set an app as the default."

If you want the very gory details of why Photos didn't work, please read on to find out what I was trying to do.

I had used Firefox to log in to an Exchange Server using an Outlook Web Access (OWA) client hosted on a web page.  I then opened an e-mail that had a JPG file attached to it.  When I attempted to download the attachment, OWA again wanted me to provide my username and password.  Photos was unable to handle that request (and neither was Firefox).  It was only by completing the action with ES File Explorer File Manager that I found out about the need to provide username and password.  I've included this detail in case there are others who are having trouble downloading attachments with OWA.

My Recent Repair of a Laptop AC Adpater

Yesterday, my laptop wouldn't charge when I plugged it in.  The battery had drained overnight, so the laptop was unusable.  I quickly figured out that the AC adapter has suddenly stopped working.

My nearby Staples had a universal adapter in stock at 20% off, so I picked it up and was soon back in business.

But then I wondered why the "old" adapter had failed. The technician at Staples said that most fail due to a broken wire near the connector that plugs in to the computer.  I know that if you flex any wire enough that it will break.  But this computer was kept in the kitchen at home, and the cable stayed in one place most of the time.  I decided to take it apart and fix it.

Most of the repair guides for Laptop AC Adapters resolve a break or short in the wire at one of the ends of the DC cable.  One even recommends that you cut off the connector, and splice a new connector on, which is silly given that no casual user has a spare connector lying around.  This same guide says that if there's no voltage after cutting off the connector, the adapter is dead and you have to buy a new one.  Turns out, that's not true at all.

My repair approach was different.  I decided that I would crack open the adapter housing and then verify continuity from the circuit board to the connector with a DMM.  But as soon as I removed the housing, I saw the problem: Cold Solder Joints.  Whoever soldered the wires to the circuit board failed to thoroughly heat up both the pad and the wire.  So the solder didn't flow down the via hole and fully coat the wire.  This never would have passed inspection at my company.

I fired up my soldering iron and reflowed the three connections in less than two minutes.  It took at least five times longer for me to break open the housing.  Message to manufacturers of consumer electronics: If you won't bother to assemble the electronics properly, at least design the housings so that they're easy to take apart and put back together!  I glued it back together with RTV, and it's curing as I write this.

I've fixed several items with this type of reflow repair, including a fairly expensive audio receiver.  A soldering iron and the ability to use it can keep you from throwing out perfectly good electronics.

Free Excel Tutorial

I'm still using Excel 2003 at work.  It does all we need it to do.

And at home, Open Office's Calc is so compatible that I can forgo Excel completely, although I still use the Excel Viewer.

But there are some really neat features of the latest Excel.  I especially like Data Bars and Color Scales.

To learn more about them, I studied this Excel Tutorial from Udemy.

Some of the other tutorial sections were helpful, too.  For example, Pivot Tables have been updated.  What used to be Page Fields is now Filter.  And unlike Page, Filter allows you to choose more than one value.

Reverse the Order of Worksheets in an Excel Workbook

Today I found myself wanting to reverse the order of sheet tabs in an Excel file.  The VBA code snippet below does just that.

Sub Worksheet_Reverse_Order()
Dim MySheet As Worksheet
Dim i As Integer

For Each MySheet In Worksheets
Debug.Print MySheet.Index, MySheet.Name
Next

For i = 2 To Worksheets.Count
Set MySheet = Worksheets(i)
MySheet.Move before:=Worksheets(1)
Next i

For Each MySheet In Worksheets
Debug.Print MySheet.Index, MySheet.Name
Next

End Sub


Background...
I had been maintaining weekly status updates as Excel spreadsheets, all grouped into one XLS document.  Each week I'd add a new sheet to the right of the previous week's worksheet tab.

But due to a change in workflow, I now have to copy the new sheet into that workbook rather than create it in the workbook.  In order to keep placing the new sheet after all the others, it's necessary to scroll to the end of the list of sheets and select "(move to end)".

"It would be so much easier if the sheets were in reverse order," I sighed to myself.  The thought of dragging them into reverse order manually was, well, unthinkable.  And thus this VBA macro was born.

When Flourescent Lights Go Bad

Fluorescent lights produce a lot of light for little power.  My kitchen lights, which use two T9 bulbs, are rated at 32W, 2400lm and 22W, 1400lm¹.  The bulbs are expensive and not easy to find, but they supposedly last five years.

The problem is that the performance and longevity of fluorescent lights depends on the ballast.  This is an electrical module that conditions the current, and it's not 100% efficient.  Also the ballast will degrade and eventually need to be replaced.  Sometimes a faulty ballast makes itself evident when the light flickers, or when the light doesn't turn on immediately and you need to flip the light switch off and on to get it to light.  At this point the bulbs will burn out quickly.

The ballast is even more expensive and harder to find than the bulbs.  And replacing the ballast isn't meant to be done by the consumer, although a home owner who can replace a light switch or electrical outlet will be able to replace a ballast in about ten minutes if the fixture is designed well.

I mention all this because I again find it necessary to replace the ballasts in the two kitchen lights.  In fact, I was thinking of replacing these fixtures with new fixtures that have multiple sockets for standard (Edison screw) bulbs.  I figured this was a better long-range solution because it would allow me to use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs today and then eventually graduate to LED bulbs.  Never again would I need to search for the expensive ballasts and replace them.

But I did manage to find the ballasts for quite a reasonable price.  So it didn't make sense to replace them this time.  But in ten years, if I'm still in this house, I think I'll be buying new fixtures.

---

¹ For a comparison of the lighting efficiency of various types of bulbs, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#Lighting_efficiency.

Trials with an Old Computer

About six years ago, I mused about what to do with an old computer, a 500MHz Pentium III.  My idea was to reformat the hard drive (20GB) and install one of these operating systems: Windows 2000 (already obsolete); Windows XP (facing obsolescence); and Linux (Ubuntu, although I don't recall why I decided on that flavor).

I tried all three plus Dyne:bolic, a Linux variant specialized for music and video production on under-powered computers.  Here's how I fared....

Dyne:bolic was easy to try out, and I didn't have to reformat the Window NT drive to do it.  So I tried it first.  After downloading version 2, I burned the ISO image to a CD.  It booted up just fine and I ran it from the CD.  It performed well, but it was set up for a single root-level user, and it wouldn't "play" Flash content.

Next was XP.  The first problem I had was that I couldn't activate the OS, even though I had a valid key.  But I played around with it anyway during the evaluation period.  Just twenty minutes was enough to know it would be way too slow.

Then I installed Windows 2000.  This involved a lot of tedious business with multiple CDs for the OS itself, then Service Pack 6 and then more CDs with security software and utilities.  Everything went well until I installed the antivirus program and updated it.  After that, the OS would not start.

Finally I decided to give Linux a try.  Rather than download images files, I decided to search the local public library system for Linux books that had accompanying CDs.  And I limited my search to old books, too, since I really needed the installer to be on CD-ROMs and not a DVD.  There were some Red Hat Linux books, so I got one and tried it.  It installed and ran really well except for the web browser, Mozilla, which had me pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and longing for Task Manager to come up so I could kill it.

Of these four options, Dyne:bolic was clearly the best.  Unfortunately, by the time I got around to realizing it, Jaromil released version 3.0.0, whose 1.6GB image now must be burned onto DVD, not CD.  (I can't find the CD that had version 2 on it. And booting from USB is not an option in this computer's BIOS.)  This latest Dyne:bolic is totally awesome -- I tried the Live CD on my main home desktop (a P4), and I created a small virtual machine on my work computer, which boots the image file.

In order to run D:B3 on my PIII, I need a DVD drive.  Since I had two on my main desktop, I removed one and installed it on the PIII.  But, alas, it didn't work.  The computer detected the drive, but it won't boot from it, and Linux won't mount it.  So I think the laser is shot.  I've encountered a few non-functioning DVD drives in this manufacturer's computers, so I really do think the drive is defective.  In fact I wasn't able to boot from the drive recently when it was in the P4 that I took it out of.

So this is where I am now.  I need a working IDE DVD drive, which are expensive and/or refurbished.  There are adapters that can convert a SATA drive to IDE, but that's an extra expense I didn't want to pay.  Plus, I'm not sure this small form factor case will have any room for it, although I can put the new SATA drive with IDE adapter into the main desktop and move the working IDE DVD drive from the main desktop to the PIII if I really had to.

If / when I clear this hurdle I'll check in again.  Hopefully D:B3 will still be available!

Creative Door Repair

The back door of our home never quite opened and closed smoothly. It was necessary to lift the doorknob while closing it in order to prevent the bottom from scraping the threshold.

Very recently the upper hinge pulled completely away from the door frame.  My wife and daughter couldn't finesse the door closed any more.  I re-tightened the screws, but the holes for the screws had widened, so the screw threads no longer had enough wood to bite into.  The hinge wouldn't stay secure for long.

My first impulse was to replace the screws with longer ones of the same diameter.  But not finding any in my collection, I realized I would have to visit the hardware store.

I really enjoy going to the hardware store.  Not the big, nation-wide chain stores like Home Depot or Lowes, though.  I prefer the small, neighborhood shops that seem to carry the odd-ball bits of fixture parts that were used in our neighborhood over fifty years ago when our homes were built.  Our stores are usually staffed by a retired handyman or engineer.  Or maybe the guy just likes hanging out there, giving out free advice without even getting paid for it.

Alas I was too busy to make the trip.  So I busied my mind, thinking of alternative repair options while carrying out the many tedious chores I had to deal with.

My next idea was to plug the screw holes with wooden dowels.  In fact I had many ¼ inch dowel pins left over from an old wood-working project.  I could use those.  But because they were much larger than the screws and the holes, I'd have to drill out the holes first before inserting the pins.  And then I'd have to drill pilot holes into the dowels themselves so that I could get the screws into the pins.  And I'd probably have to use carpenter's glue to hold the dowel pin in place before drilling.

If I had much smaller dowels, I could simply stick them into the holes and jam the screws in.  This would certainly be enough to keep the screws fastened tightly.  But because I didn't have the smaller dowels, I'd have to go to the hardware anyway.

Finally the solution came to me.  I had all the dowels I needed right outside my door!  All I had to do was stroll through the wooded area of our yard to find the right size twig.  Which I did.  It took about 30 seconds.

One oak twig about four inches long was enough to fill all four screw holes.  I broke the twig into four pieces and inserted them into the holes and tightened the screws.

And now the door opens and closes easily, without needing to be lifted, and without scraping the bottom.

This to me is what makes home repair an art form.

Execute Text in MS Word Using the System Shell

I was writing a tutorial in Microsoft Word that describes commands that the reader is supposed to enter at the command prompt.  I thought it would be neat if I could run those commands from within Word to validate them as I entered them.

And so I came up with a surprisingly simple VBA subroutine that sends selected text to the shell.  It is quoted, below.  The code should be placed into a module in Normal.dot.

Note that I invoke two statements in the Shell.  They are separated by the double ampersands.  I combine them into a single string (strCmd) that I pass to the shell.

The first statement is to change to the current working directory, which I assume is the same directory that the Word document resides in.  This isn't fool proof, however.  One failure mode would be if someone were to start Word and create a new document without saving it to the hard drive before calling the routine.  Another failure mode would be if the Word document were to reside on a remote share through a UNC path, such as \\FileServer\ShareName\tutorial.doc -- it's not possible to CD into a UNC path.

The second statement is merely the selected text.

Also note that strCmd  is preceded by the Win32 command prompt CMD.EXE.  The "/D" switch makes sure that no "AutoRun" commands get executed.  The "/C" switch terminates CMD after the command is finished executing.  CMD is included because Shell isn't able to find DOS commands such as CD.

Sorry for the small font on this source code, but I wanted to ensure it wouldn't wrap.

Sub InvokeWithShell()
' Executes the selected text to using the shell
' 2014-06-09 LudditeGeek Created
    Dim strCmd As String
   
    If Selection.Characters.Count <= 1 Then
        MsgBox "Nothing Selected!", vbExclamation, "Invoke With Shell Macro Message"
    ElseIf Selection.Paragraphs.Count > 1 Then
        MsgBox "Multiple Lines Selected!", vbExclamation, "Invoke With Shell Macro Message"
    Else
        strCmd = Selection.Text
        Debug.Print "Invoking " & strCmd
        strCmd = "cd " & ActiveDocument.Path & "\ && " & strCmd
        Shell "cmd /D /C " & strCmd
    End If
   
End Sub

Blackphone and Webroot

Friday on NRP, Morning Edition featured the Blackphone, a smart phone with privacy as its number one priority.  Also mentioned were Black, Boeing's super secure smart phone, and Webroot, a security application.

Read more at http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/28/283523473/a-smartphone-that-tries-to-slip-you-off-the-grid.

Disable Outlook's Junk Email Filters

After upgrading to Outlook 2010 over a year ago, it became apparent that its junk email filter continued to work even after we disabled it.

It took so long for me to notice because I use Popfile to categorize the email I download from my ISP's POP3 server.  Popfile would catch the most obvious spam before the Outlook junk email would process it.

But occasionally a message that Popfile marked as valid would end up in the Deleted Items folder.  Outlook's occasional false positive would make me wonder what was going on, but it happened so rarely that it was easier just to check for these false positives than to research the issue.  Besides, the corporate bulk mail filter running on the Exchange serve would stash things into the Junk Email folder, and I needed to check for false positives from that filter.

But then there was an incident that triggered an intra-departmental¹ outcry about the issue.  It was the day that several messages from our Content Management System got flagged by Junk Email and then deleted, causing folks not to notice updates on a few project files.

We all dutifully set Outlook's Junk Email filter to Disabled.  But I continued to see valid messages from my ISP placed into Deleted Items.  Recently I obtained a few spare moments² and quickly found a solution to the issue.  It was my favorite Outlook/Exchange website that I landed on.  Here's the link:

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/how-to-disable-outlooks-junk-email-filter/

The text says to change the value in a registry key, but in my case, the key didn't exist, so I created it, first.

Only time will tell whether this works.  I will know for sure only if it doesn't.  I suppose I can find an old message that triggered a false positive and send it to myself, but the header of that message would be different from the original header.

---

¹ The emphasis is on the part of the word that contains "mental".

² A good way to obtain spare moments is to schedule a meeting right after another meeting, so that if the other meeting runs late, the participants will be milling around outside the meeting room.  After a while, you get a sense of which meetings will run the longest based on the topic and especially on whether certain coworkers will be in them.  Some meetings can run so late that the folks who mill around will disperse and take an additional five minutes to reassemble, assuming they haven't gone off to lunch or embarked on an early vacation or retirement.

Excel Hyperlinks -- Relative vs. Absolute Path

I rarely insert hyperlinks into an Excel spreadsheet.  So every time I do, I get burned by Excel's predilection for turning Absolute paths into Relative paths.

Here's the scenario...

I'll use Excel to create a flat file database on my local hard drive.  I'll include links to the file server on the network using UNC paths, such as \\File-Server\Share-Name\Path2File\MyFile.ext.  (The Ctrl-k keystroke is really handy for creating hyperlinks, BTW.)

After building the table by adding fields in columns, adding formatting, and entering a few records in rows for testing, I'll consider the database to be production ready.  At this point I'll upload it to the same file server that my links point to.

The next time a user opens the network version of that spreadsheet, Excel will convert those carefully-entered absolute links to relative links.  So if the spreadsheet resides in \\File-Server\NewShare\Reports\Databases\LG.xls, the links to MyFile.ext turn into this: ..\..\..\Share-Name\Path2File\MyFile.ext.  They work just fine while the spreadsheet remains in that location.

But suppose the user saves the database and then e-mails it someone else in the organization, or copies it to his or her local hard drive.  The links are broken.  Furthermore, there's no easy way to fix them.  Search and Replace (Ctrl-h) won't find the ..\..\..\ in the hyperlinks.  You'll have to either fix them manually or write a program to do it.  And then the same thing could happen again, anyway.

But there is (thankfully) a trick to keep Excel from bastardizing your carefully designed links.  But it's a preventive measure -- you have to know about the trick before you get stuck with the link conversion.

The trick is to open the File Properties dialog.  Choose the Summary tab and enter C:\ in the text box next to the label that reads "Hyperlink base:".  Be sure to OK your way out and save.  These instructions are for Excel 2000 and 2003.  Later versions probably have the same properties dialog, but the way to open it might be different.

Really, it's best to do this before entering any hyperlinks.  Ideally, Excel would have an Option for this.  But alas, all I could find was a checkbox to enable Excel to prompt for workbook properties.

Hopefully, by writing this post, I've seared this information into my brain so that the next time I'm tempted to enter a hyperlink, I'll remember to set this property.

Hmmm, it just occurred to me to code this property using VBA....

Brain Games

What kind of Geek could resist an opportunity to improve his or her mind?  If there is such a geek, I am not that kind.

So when I heard the advertisements sponsorship acknowledgments on NPR for Lumosity, I decided to check it out.

Lumosity develops and offers online games that improve mental function.  Their aim is to enable anyone to achieve his or her full potential, brain-wise, at least.

Lumosity provides two tiers of service: free, and subscription.  Users of free accounts are restricted to just three games per day, while subscribers have access not only to unlimited games, but also Personalized Training, Performance Tracking, and comparisons to other Lumosity users.

Since I joined way back on June 1, I've improved slowly and steadily to match the ability of someone half my age, assuming that someone is a slug.  Haha.  Just kidding.  Actually I have no idea because I'm using a free account.  All I know is that four weeks ago my score was 1025 and now it is 1111.

See?

Here's my Brain Performance broken down into various categories:

So check out Lumosity. It's free. It's fun. And you might just gain enough improvement to survive the upcoming Zombie Apocolypse.

Outlook 2010 Macros -- Adventures in Getting Them to Work

In a post that included Outlook VBA code, I mentioned that I stopped using the macro because of Outlook's tougher security.

Today, I decided to try to eliminate the main problem that I had, namely an inability to run the macro except from within the VBA Project IDE.

Here's the scenario:  I have code that worked on Outlook 2000.  I assigned a toolbar button to call it.  But the toolbar button doesn't work in Outlook 2010.  Nothing happens.  Pressing Alt-F8 and clicking Run opens the VBA macro in the IDE and displays an error "Subroutine or Function not found" (paraphrased).  But then I can run the macro by clicking the play button.

One aspect of my solution was to make sure macros were not being disabled.  I choose to self-sign the macro rather than enable all macros.  First I used SelfCert.exe, which I found in the Outlook program directory (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14).  SelfCert.exe can be used to create personal certificate -- it would work for me on my local computer.  After I created the certificate, I signed the macro (Tools | Digital Signatures | Choose).  After clicking OK, I immediately pressed Ctrl-sto save the macro.  And then I closed Outlook.  But when I did, it asked me whether I wanted to save VbaProject.OTM.  Odd.  First I responded No.  But when I reopened the VBA editor and checked for digital signatures, it reported that the macro was unsigned.  But answering Yes to the prompt to save didn't help either.  The macro still wasn't signed.

I wondered if the Read Only attribute had been set on VbaProject.OTM.  But no, I had Full Control rights on the file.  Yet, the file's timestamp was old!  It wasn't getting saved!  Ahh, but the old timestamp was a trick, an undocumented "feature".  According to this support thread, it was normal for the timestamp and file size of VbaProject.OTM to remain unchanged after a save.  (This is why the phrase "WTF?" was invented.)  I verified that the save was taking place by adding a comment to my code, saving, closing Outlook and then re-opening the macro.

After that little detour, I found that it was necessary for me to install the certificate in the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities."  This can be done deep within the bowels of the VBA editor.  Tools | Digital Signatures | Choose.  Click the link that says "Click here to view the certificate prope..."  Click the button "Install Certificate..." then Next.  In the next dialog box, click the radio button for "Place all certificates in the following store" then Browse.  Select "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" and then OK / Next your way out.  Save and close Outlook again.

BTW, every time you close Outlook, you should use Task Manager to verify that the Outlook process is not running.

Still the macro would not run except from within the editor.  But I found the solution in another thread.  My code was in a module.  After I moved it to ThisOutlookSession, I was able to assign an actual functioning toolbar button to it.

Whew!

It is very nice that even though I have other macros working that access the From and To properties of a message, I no longer get the annoying message box that warns me that my address book is being accessed and asks whether I want to allow that.

Android Tablet Possibly For Sale

So far my tablet is leading me to the conclusion that it's not worth buying one.  While the portability of it is really neat, it's still not small enough to fit in any pocket, except perhaps a generous jacket pocket.  Sans jacket, I've stowed it inside my button-down shirt by opening one button, slipping it in, and then closing the button.  But during bouts of warm T-shirt weather, I'm forced to either hold the tablet or put it down somewhere when I'm not actually using it.

For example, when I went grocery shopping last week, I placed the tablet in the "seat" of the shopping cart.  When I was done shopping, and I had loaded the car, I returned the cart to one of the spots set aside for the empty carts.  As I walked away, I glanced back to make sure I didn't leave anything behind in the cart, and then I drove home.  And as soon as I got home, I wondered where my tablet was.  I realized I had left it in the cart.  And the reason I didn't notice it when I walked away from the cart was that it lay atop a store circular that had been folded over it by the wind.  Luckily it was in the same spot I left it.  But had I not been able to find it, I'd've not bothered to replace it or even miss it.  I might've felt a bit relieved.  In fact, right now I'm wondering how much I can get for it.

I like having a computer.  It enables me to communicate through e-mail, blogs, message boards and even social media.  And the mobility of it would be extremely fantastic if: 1) Free WiFi were accessible everywhere; 2) It didn't take ten times longer to compose meaningful content.  BTW, I'm typing this right now on a public library computer, even though I have my tablet with me and have access to free WiFi.  Even with the Nexus' Speech-to-Text feature and the Hacker's Keyboard, I still prefer to enter content through an "old fashioned" keyboard.

The marriage of location-aware note-taking and image capture that Evernote provides would be useful if the Nexus had a good-quality rear camera.

Blamed For Doing Its Job

The IRS recently was criticized for scrutinizing certain organizations applying for tax free status.  It seems that organizations that had "Tea Party" in their names received extra scrutiny.

First of all, "Tea Party" generally refers to a political organization.  And the fact is that political organizations are not entitled to tax free status.

Second, "Tea Party" is a reference to a revolt conducted by vandals who were opposed to paying taxes.

So these critics are essentially saying that an organization whose name implies that it's political in nature and opposed to taxes should not be scrutinized when it applies for tax free status?

Huh?

How I Got My Computer to Chime

It all started with a blog post by Sacha Chua that made me think, "I bet there's an app for that."  She described how she set up her smart phone to vibrate every half hour.

Soon after, I found Chime Time, by Hyperfine, which turned my tablet into an Aberdeen mantel clock.  And I loved the idea of chimes and bells so much that I also installed Bodhi Timer, by Yuttadhammo, which can be set up as a timer and play a variety of tones, including singing bowl, when the time is up.

Chime Time starts up automatically when Android starts up.  But Bodhi Timer does not, so I start it in the morning.  I might set it to go off every 15 minutes starting at about 7 minutes after the hour (or any 15-minute interval afterwards), or every 10 minutes starting at 5 after the hour (or any 10-minute interval afterwards), depending on when I can remember to do it.

Having bells and chimes sound off every so often reminds me to live in the present.  When I hear the sound I ask myself whether I'm using time mindfully.

However, my wife absolutely hates it.

Anyway, after enjoying this for a few days on my tablet, I wondered if there were something similar that I could use on my work computer.  I didn't feel like running the tablet just to have it make noise.

That motivated me to search on SourceForge, where I found TeaTimer.  But TeaTimer would pop up an alert box at the end of each interval because it was really intended as a timer for steeping tea.  So I decided to write my own in Visual Basic 6.

I wrote a simple application that would simply play a WAV file whenever it was invoked.  I chose chimes.wav from Microsoft Office, although I'm sure there's an equivalent from OpenOffice, as well.  Then I set a job in Task Scheduler to call it every 15 minutes.  There is a special trick to pulling this off, though, because while my program worked fine when invoked interactively, it refused to work when triggered by Task Scheduler.

I found the solution on the Microsoft Support website: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/86281.

Here's the source code in its entirety, comments removed for clarity:

Declare Function sndPlaySound Lib "WINMM.DLL" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" _
    (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As Long) As Long
Public Const SND_SYNC = &H0
Public Const SND_ASYNC = &H1
Public Const SND_NODEFAULT = &H2
Public Const SND_LOOP = &H8
Public Const SND_NOSTOP = &H10
'Here are explanations for the parameters: (removed)
Private Sub Main()
    Dim SoundName$
    Dim x%, wFlags%
   
    SoundName$ = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MEDIA\CHIMES.WAV"
    wFlags% = SND_NODEFAULT ' Or SND_ASYNC
    x% = sndPlaySound(SoundName$, wFlags%)

End Sub

Android Tablet -- a GPS Device Poser

I concede that I was exaggerating a bit when I referred to my new tablet as "a GPS device, RF scanner, MP3 player, eReader, camera, digital voice recorder, hand held gaming device, clock, portable translator...." It's the "GPS device" boast that's questionable.

Well it depends on how you define GPS Device. If it's a merely a device that displays a map and shows you where you are on that map using the Global Positioning System network of satellites, then, yes, the tablet is such a device.

But if you expect the device to allow you to enter a destination and provide real-time instruction on how to get there, along with an reasonably accurate estimate of when you can expect to reach your destination, then the tablet is merely a GPS Device Poser.

On my Nexus 7, directions are provided by Google Maps, which does a very good job of routing. But something called Navigator assumes the role of proving the actual turn-by-turn directions and arrival time.

Navigator works fine as long as you follow the initial route and as long as traffic conditions do not change during the trip. For example, if you start out at home while the tablet has an Internet connection, Google Maps will check the traffic conditions and provide both a route and an estimate of arrival time that's fairly accurate. You have the option of downloading a rectangular map that encompasses the route, too, so you can use Navigator offline.

But during the trip when the Internet connection is missing, Navigator cannot adapt to a traffic problem. Well, that's to be expected, and it's no reason to find fault in the app. The real problem is that Navigator does not recalculate the trip when you deviate from the route.

On my 20-minute commute to work, I can take one of four different major routes, two of which are on state highways, both of which are littered by red traffic lights. So I like to take the back roads, which are scenic and have fewer stops, albeit longer. It's reasonable for Navigator to prefer the state highways. But when I ignore the chosen route, Navigator refuses to recalculate. Instead it provides directions to return me to the point where I went off course. So the closer I get to work via the back road, the longer the trip time. I've seen the 20-minute commute spike up to 1 hour and 45 minutes. And when I finally do come to an intersection with the highway, it will actually direct me in the opposite direction, presumably to reach a way point on it's own route.

Well there are other GPS apps, even free ones, that can provide turn-by-turn directions. Right now I'm evaluating Navfree USA: Free. It does a better job of dealing with my willful disregard of the planned route. But it's a little rough. For example, it fails to give you the first instruction at the beginning of the trip. Also you need to have an Internet connection in order to get directions to an address because it queries Google maps.  (That's not an issue if you've saved your destination as a Favorite.) I'm assuming that the same is true for Points of Interest.  The biggest problem with it, though, is that it will crash after 30 to 40 minutes and need to be restarted.

So alas, I'm not about to give up my Garmin Nuvi just yet.  It would provide real time traffic updates in some areas and serve as a backup to the tablet in the event that I needed to follow a detour.

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Edited on 2013-04-13 to add two sentences to the Navfree paragraph.

My Geeky Reward

Recently I took my stash of credit card rewards and, all at once, I bought a GPS device, RF scanner, MP3 player, eReader, camera, digital voice recorder, hand held gaming device, clock, portable translator....

That's one heck of a reward!

Well, if you haven't guessed by now, I bought a tablet.  I suppose "RF Scanner" might've thrown you off, but with the Scanner Radio app, you can turn an Android tablet into a police scanner as long as you're connected to a Wi-Fi network.  Plus you can listen to the goings on of the LAPD¹ from the East Coast.

The six $50 gift cards that I bought with $240 of rewards allowed me to pay for the Google Nexus 7 tablet, tax included, plus the two-year warranty extension, which I chose because I was not paying by credit card.  I usually decline such extended warranty plans on the grounds that my credit card offers the same coverage.  But since I wasn't using the credit card to pay for the purchase, and I was saving so much money anyway, I figured I might as well go for it.  Although I do realize that the device might be obsolete before it expires.

Anyway, I love the device.   I found an app that works with my public library's downloadable book collection.  So if I'm in the mood to read Dave Barry late at night, I can use the app to borrow Dave Barry in Cyberspace, for free.

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¹ Los Angeles Police Department. The radio traffic of the LAPD and that of San Bernardino County was very popular a few weeks ago during the manhunt for Christopher Dorner.

Earth is 9000 Years Old!

I did not realize until just a few moments ago that our Earth is 9000 years old, and it was created in six days.  So says Rep. Paul C. Broun, a republican from Georgia.  He is a member of a key congressional science advisory committee,  so he must know what he's taking about.

He also refers to evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory as "all lies straight from the pit of Hell."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/07/bill-nye-paul-broun-science-space-technology_n_1947125.html