I'm in a Diet & Exercise Funk

I was doing really good with my tracking & exercise, but not this week.  I want nothing to do with the Wii Active Trainer, and I am tired of tracking my food on Spark People.  But I don't want to gain weight.  Spark People has a mini-tracker, where you just count the fruit/veggie servings, glasses of water, and fitness minutes.  I'm still OK with using the Gazelle, and maybe I will play a fun sport on the Wii like Bowling or Frisbee Golf.  No trainer this week.

Remte control

I got a Wii for Christmas and it is still not hooked up!  The living room TV only has one auxiliary port in the front & the husband did not want to unhook the DVD player.  He almost never watches any DVDs, so I convinced him to hook up the Wii.  Now, the remote that changes the input from TV to video game is lost.  The menu button *should* do that function, but it does not.  I found a replacement remote on eBay, though I might hook up the Wii in the bedroom.

Roller Skating

As a child I had the metal skates that clamped on to your shoes with a skate key.  We had a tiled basement floor and spent many hours skating there, or outside on the sidewalks in our neighborhood.  I was in my teens the first time I went to a roller rink with my cosmetology classmates. I fell a few times, but eventually got the hang of it. I think that rink was in Oella, Md and no longer around. Many roller skating rinks have closed.  In my area, we had 2 roller rinks at one time.  One closed years ago and is now a catering hall (Michael's).  The other one is a classic rink with wood floors.  My younger brothers went there to skate, and I used to go a couple of times a year when my kids were in school and in scouts.  I tried roller blades outdoors on the hiking trail, but did not have a very good pair of outdoor skates and falling outdoors seemed much worse than falling indoors at the rink.  Today, my grandson had his birthday party at the roller rink.  I donned my rented skates and gave it a whirl.  Though it has probably been 15 years since I roller skated, I did just fine.  This grandma can still skate!

Formatting a hard drive

The last new hard drive I bought was a Seagate 80 GB for my P3 in 2003 or 2004, and it came with installation software. Recently, I purchased a used/refurbished Maxtor 250 GB IDE/PATA drive to replace the 80 GB drive in my IDE/PATA to USB external enclosure. The disk was not formatted, and I had no idea how to format it without installation software. I could see it in the device manager, but not in "my computer". After some searching (and a call to my brother in WV) I found the download for the Seagate tools (Maxtor is now Seagate) and the Computer Management function in Windows 7 (Control Panel/System and Security/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management). I used the Computer Management function, and I now have a 250 GB external storage drive for back-ups.

Open Office problem with labels solved

I generally like Open Office, once I figure out the differences compared to using Word & Excel.  I encountered a peculiar problem with creating & printing the address labels in OO.  When I printed the labels, only the Canadian postal codes appeared on the printed label.  I posted the problem on the OO forums and found out that v 3.2 has a bug that doesn't recognize mixed text & numbers from a spreadsheet in a data source.  The forum tech provided a fix, which once I applied it correctly, worked like a charm. 

RIP Microsoft Works

I've had Microsoft Works on every computer I've owned since 1994.  It was pre-loaded on my first computer and I learned to use the various features.  It was easy to use, but unfortunately,  not compatible with any other office suite. After I got Office 97, I didn't use Works for much anymore, but I kept it so I could view the items I had saved in Works.  I have not upgraded it since Works 99, which included Word 97.  The current version, Works 9, claims that documents and spreadsheets can be viewed and edited in MS Office. Works is still available for purchase, but my new computer came with a pre-loaded starter version of 2010 Word & Excel rather than Works.  Though I can use Works 99 with  Windows 7, some of the features no longer function, but I see no reason to purchase the upgrade.

One thing that Works did extremely well was address labels.  I tried several times to convert my Works address book into Office, but never quite made the transition.  I eventually learned to create mailing labels in Word from an Excel spreadsheet  I found a program to convert my address book to Excel; however, it was an obnoxious little trial version that put their plug to purchase the program in about 25 cells that I had to edit. Now that I have my address book in Excel, I can finally put Works to rest.  I also saved the Excel spreadsheet in O-O, and can make address labels in O-O.  RIP Microsoft Works.

Windows Live Essentials 2011

I was prompted to install an update for Windows Live Essentials on my new laptop.  Since I do not have Outlook on the laptop and OE is no longer included with Windows 7, I decided to give Live Essentials a try.  Advise: don't bother with the 2011 version.  I might try the 2009 version or just get Thunderbird for a default mail program.