Newsletter Deadline and 2021 Calendar

 I've been writing a monthly newsletter for 29 of the last 38 years! From 1983-96 it was for my Fort Lauderdale-based computer training firm, Computer Savvy. From 2006 to present it's for Geeks on Tour. 

I am obligated to write a newsletter every month. It should be done on the first. That rarely happens. Today is the 6th. As of this morning, the newsletter was not done. Nobody would notice, nobody would care, if I missed a month ... or 2 ... or 3. But I would. It's what I do.

So I did.

It got sent out today. Here it is: Dec 2021 News: Samsung S21 Ultra – Surprise, Google Photos, Smartphone settings, more…

I love photos.  I start every newsletter with a current photo or other image. It's been on my list to make an album of all these photos. I figure I'll put a few here and see what it looks like. Kinda like a calendar then, here are the photos from each month in 2021:

January 2021



February 2021





March 2021





April 2021






May 2021






June 2021






July 2021






August 2021






September 2021





October 2021





November 2021






December 2021

Artsy friends

 I've been friends with Marie since before I knew Jim. She was president of the USA Dive club at the time, a club that we both still belong to. She was a college professor and a professional city planner, so it was a surprise when she started painting. Who knew she was artistic. She's really good. I bought one of her paintings several years ago and it has a place of honor on our living room wall. I love how it seems to shine a light all of its own.

So, when she sent out a notice that she was participating in an art show and sale this weekend, Jim and I made plans to go. It was about an hour drive, so we took the van. It's good to give it exercise and it's just so comfortable. Marie said the art show was just around the corner from a great park with nice biking trails, so Jim put the bike rack on the back so we could go riding after.

What a cool spot. This is the studio where Marie paints with a group of other artists once every week. And, who is this? Two other dive club members, Kathi and Patrice, also came to the art show.

Kathi's purchase

Our purchase

Then we drove over to the Riverbend Park, had a little lunch and went for a bike ride. We really do need to plan for a kayak paddle up here sometime soon. The kayak rental is right there. Find all the details at JupiterOutdoorCenter.com

The bike trails were beautiful. We had to cut our ride a bit short because my bike's chain kept falling off. ...Add to list: get bike tuned up

I had fun with my new camera. Here is a little video using the new "Director's view" that lets me take a video with the main rear camera while at the same time recording myself in the front-facing camera and having it show up picture-in-picture.

I also grabbed a few telephoto shots of the beautiful white Egret. If you've ever tried to capture a photo of an egret actively fishing, you know how slow they can be. I put the camera on video and watched for over 2 minutes as the bird s l o w l y moved forward and never did strike. This photo is take by using the Motion Photo feature. If you don't know what that is, see Episode 223 of our "What Does This Button Do?" show. The key is that you just take a picture like normal, but the camera captures a couple seconds of motion BEFORE you snap the shutter. So, I could wait until I saw the egret strike, quick snap the shutter, and it gets the whole thing in motion. Then, the final step is that I can export it to an animated gif file. Pretty cool dontcha think?

And this photo shows how far away I was. I used the 10X telephoto to get the photo above.

Yoga and Fasting

Today was a quiet day at home.

For 7 years now, Friday mornings have started with a meeting of 6 like-minded people who share technology news and tips. It was organized way-back-when by Martin Brossman and he sets the tone of fun and learning. We always have a couple of good laughs. We meet on Zoom, but Zoom didn't exist when we started - I think we used Hangouts. Learn by doing! Think of it as mental yoga!

Next on Friday comes a real Yoga class - also on Zoom. Well, some might not call it 'real' because it's chair yoga ... for us old folks! The teacher has taught Kundalini for many years though and you can tell. I feel great after that 45 minutes.

The rest of the day was what I call work. Sitting at the computer writing, researching, and website maintenance. We did take a break and took a walk around the circle.

Fasting Friday - well kinda. I think fasting is good for you. Giving your body a break from digesting. Reboot if you will. Sometimes both Jim and I easily fast, consuming nothing but water all day. Other times it's just impossible - I'm hungry! Last night we went to a party by our Dive Club - we had fun. We ate and drank, so fasting friday seemed like an especially good idea today. I got too hungry to fast 100%, but I drank a lot of water and only ate 1 apple, and a few bites of tuna. Hopefully the scales will notice tomorrow morning.

I have a healthy husband

 Back in 2013-14 we went on a very strict, doctor-led diet. I lost 20 pounds and Jim lost over 70. 8 years later now, and we've kept it off. It made a huge difference in Jim's health. Before the weight loss, he was on several medications for cholesterol and high blood pressure. All of them went by the wayside when he lost the weight and, to this day I look at him and marvel. 

My husband is mighty fine!

We now have a checkup once each year and we both get compliments from the doctor on our blood pressure and the results of our bloodwork! The last checkup showed a small abnormality in his EKG so he had an appointment with the cardiologist today. They re-tested him and could find nothing wrong. I have a healthy husband! It's a good thing, because we have lots of travel plans.

Do you think I went too far though, commissioning this statue to him over at the Ringling Art gallery in Sarasota?

Fun and aggravation with my new phone

 I did finally get the box open! Then I turned it on and followed the instructions to turn OFF my old Samsung/Verizon phone so that the new one (the S21 Ultra) could automatically activate. Amazing. I didn't have to deal with the SIM card at all, it just did everything for me.

 

After activating the phone number, it went to work installing all the same apps as were on the old phone, setting up my accounts, and copying all the data. When I picked up the new phone, I could hardly tell the difference between it and the old phone. That is, until I opened one of the apps. Here comes the aggravation, you have to sign in and verify your identity. I usually do that with Lastpass, but Lastpass needed me to sign in and prove my identity as well. Kind of a catch-22. I just kept at it. Reading instructions, pushing buttons, entering codes that got sent to one of my other devices, until stuff started to work. The turning point was when I set up my Google Voice phone number on the new phone. Now, I can get the codes sent to Google Voice and it comes straight to the new phone.

The Google Photos app seemed to be stuck. All day long it said, "Setting up your library" and "Getting ready to back up" I finally gave up after a full day and a few hours. I uninstalled Google Photos and re-installed it. The library was set up and backup was complete in less than a half hour!

OK, now let's go have some fun with that camera! I found a pretty spot in our neighborhood where there was a sign and I got a ways away. I stood in one spot and took 4 photos, one with each of the different lens settings. You can't even see the sign when I use the wide angle or the normal lens. With the 3X You can see that there is a sign there. With the 10X you can almost read the sign - and if you zoom in a bit with two fingers, you can clearly read it. WOW