WiFi Flattery

Here we are in San Diego! We're here to visit with Lynne and John who are here to go to their son's wedding. Lynne took me and the dogs to Fiesta Island (just down the street) where the dogs can run free and even go swimming. We heard about this RV park (Mission Bay RV) from someone who told us how good the WiFi was here. And, when we checked it out, we found that it was half the cost of the other park in the area (Campland on the Bay). So here we are. When we checked in we mentioned the WiFi and were told not to expect much, that they seem to have lots of problems and get lots of complaints. You could tell she didn't really want to talk about it - but she brightened up when we said the good things we had heard. y'know, the night before, at the park that had no Internet - that person seemed quite happy to tell us that they had NO Internet. It's so much easier than explaining what they do have and how it works ... or doesn't! Poor RV park personnel! And, this one is even free. Anyway, Jim said, "I'll bet it will work just fine for us." And, indeed it does. It's working just fine for Lynne and John also. But, here comes the interesting part. One of their handouts when you check in is a document called, "Mission Bay RV Park Wi-Fi Information and Troubleshooting Basics". I started reading it with interest. When I got to the part that says, "The basic troublshooting process:" I started getting a distinct feeling of deja vu. 1. Is the Wi-Fi adapter on and functioning? .... 2. Is the Wi-Fi adapter sensing the availability of the wireless network? ... 3. Is your Wi-Fi adapter able to connect to the wireless network? ... 4. Has the wireless network connection been assigned a valid IP address? ... By the time I got to #5, I *knew* I had read these words before. In fact, I *wrote* these words! I'd forgotten all about that article I wrote a year and a half ago, but there's a lot of good WiFi advice in it. Their handout goes on for another page of helpful hints such as:

"Internet Explorer settings on the user's computer.Many people who normally use dial up need to go into Internet Explorer, Tools, Internet Options, Connections and click on 'Never Dial a Connection'. Another issue is found on Internet Options, Connections and LAN settings: If 'Use a Proxy Server" is set to yes, you won't be able to browse because there is no Proxy Server. "

Now I'm dancing around the coach laughing! I'm famous! But, nobody knows it. No, I'm not at all angry. I wrote that article to be helpful to people using WiFi. I'm glad it is. A link so people could read more might be nice, but, as for them 'borrowing' my words - I do believe that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

On the Road Again

Ahhhhh ... watching the scenery go by as we travel to someplace new. That's what it's all about. There's just something so calming, and so fulfulling about it. We made it just over the California border last night to an RV park called River's Edge. It's on the Colorado river. One thing we learned there is that there are still parks with no WiFi Internet! Imagine that?! In fact, they seemed almost proud of the fact that there was no Internet there at all. WhatEVER are people going to do there? I mean you can't boat, fish, hike, read, play bingo, watch TV, swim in the pool, soak in the spa ... all the time. Can you? Actually, I found it quite refreshing to know that all these RVers could live without WiFi. I almost found myself hoping that the trees (a lot of them) would prevent us from getting online with our satellite dish :-) But, no such luck, it worked like a champ. We were online within 10 minutes of pulling into our site. We still found time to take advantage of the spa though - it was nice and hot. One of our neighbors noticed the dish and we started talking. They had been taking their laptop into town to use the WiFi at the local library. Jim set him up to use our signal and they were very happy to be able to check their email from home for a change. That's Jess - the one with the big smile on his face! Jess and his wife Harriet are from Abbotsford B.C. They spend 3 months every year on the road in their motorhome. How much you wanna bet that those 3 months are always January, February and March?! Snowbirds eh? This morning we continued on I-8 headed for San Diego. We passed these spectacular windmills. Either they are the biggest ones we've ever seen, or we were closer than we've been to any others.

Managing Digital Photos with Google's Picasa

I've been using a variety of computer software, and teaching others how to use it, since 1983. I've taught everything from DOS, to WordStar, to WordPerfect, PageMaker, Microsoft Access, Visual Basic, and dozens of others in between. I have never seen anything as quick and easy - and powerful - as Google's Picasa. And it's *FUN*. And it's *FREE*. I first looked at Picasa a year or so ago. The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't display the 'tree' structure of your folders. I didn't like that, so I never explored the program further. For a variety of reasons, I decided to look again. It still doesn't show the tree structure, but it makes it SO easy to find your photos that I understand the reasoning. With Picasa2, I can guarantee you will find photos on your computer that you had forgotten all about. It makes it so easy to email, print or post photos to the web. It also has several ways that you can enhance your photos - cropping, color enhancements, and effects that make your photos look great. And, it does all this without touching your original, so you're safe to play with the effects to your heart's content. I was able to put together a 2 hour seminar that covers the majority of the programs features. The short length does not reflect on the lack of feature, rather, it reflects on how quick and easy the features are to use. If you'd like to review those features, you can download my outline here. Just please use it for personal purposes only. We gave the seminar at Palm Creek last weekend and a few people brought their laptops with them. Even during the class, they found pictures they had forgotten about, and they really had fun enhancing them. The following photo was taken during class, transferred from the camera to the computer (using Picasa) and posted to this Blog simply by clicking on the 'Blog This' button. Try it! You'll like it!

Picasa Seminar

This is the computer club at Palm Creek. We did a presentation on Picasa. It was so great to show people how to do something fun for a change. And Picasa IS FUN.

A busy WiFi day

RV's are pouring into Palm Creek from places like Wisconsin, Michigan and British Columbia. It's no wonder with temperatures up there all lower than 20 and temperatures here in the 70s during the day. From our point of view, it seems like all these RVers want to use the WiFi Internet connnection, and that all of them have trouble. Of course, we know that's not true. There are plenty of folks who couldn't care less about the Internet while they're here, and there are plenty of folks who turn on their computers and get it to work right away. But, since our job is to help the folks having trouble - we don't see any of those others! We had our WiFi seminar on Sunday and we had one of our biggest crowds yet - over 35 folks. I made them sing, "Happy Birthday" to Jim since this was the only day available for scheduling the seminar. They did a pretty good job! On Monday morning, we started making our 'house-calls'. We finally met back up and rolled home a little after 7 and found 18 messages on our house phone! Yikes! Luckily, they weren't all asking for visits. In fact, this one just called to inform us that he learned things in the seminar that made it work for him. Cool! That's how it's supposed to be. Education is SO key.