TheSwirl.org

This probably only interests me, but I recently saw the folder sizes of my digital pictures and was struck by the growth in the size over time. I got my 1st digital camera at the end of 2001 and the number of photos taken each year is growing and growing. I know there are times I snap a picture (or pictures) because I want to have something to add to the blog. I am struck by the fact that 2007 is a little more than 1/2 over and I have 2.3mb in digital pictures already. It must be all the weddings and loon pictures!

You’ll first  look up an address , but this trick only works if the address is centered (it’s centered by default). So, moving the map around will not make this work. When the address you want to find latitude and longitude for is dead center, copy and paste this code into your browser bar:

javascript:void(prompt(”,gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));

Conversely, if you have a lat, long combination you can plug that into Google Maps to show a location:

43.27069053158456, -75.28080940246582

A URL link to test your upload and download connection speeds.

http://www.internetfrog.com/mypc/speedtest/

I thought I would pass along this link to Mohawke’s Best of the Best Free and Open Source Software Collection.  There is an impressive list of over 274 Open Source programs listed by name, title, description, and license.  It is worth a review, I am sure you will find something to download.

I have a bunch of computer activities on going tonight. I bought a new Western Digital USB drive as my Lacie Drive I use for an off-site backup went on the fritz. I got a 150gb that I am currently copying all my music, digital photos, maps, and personal files onto. I started with my 70gb of music that is not backed up elsewhere. It took 2+ hours to copy those file; I expect the rest to be copied overnight.
After years of using free firewalls (ZoneAlarm), free anti-virus (Grisoft AVG), free ad-aware and spybot software I bought Norton 360 internet security suite. It allows installation on 3 computers, which is perfect for me. The 1st installation was relatively painless as was the 2nd.  I haven’t found any nasty viruses or malware yet.  Maybe the old freeware was doing just fine.
Kathryn’s computer is being upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP so I can run Norton 360 on it.

I upgraded my version of Wordpress, which runs this blog, to version 2.1.2.  It was easy and painless.

I have used Eudora for email since 1995, starting out on Macintosh and then over on PCs.  After reading the news of Eudora mail to be merged with Mozilla Thunderbird I purchased the last commercial release of Eudora thinking it would tide me over until the merge was complete and we would transition to Thunderbird.  I was further motivated by Eudora’s statement that by the end of March existing licenses were going to be down graded to Eudora lite.   In the past purchasing one licensed copy of Eudora permitted me to perform multiple installations; 3 PCs and 1 Mac.  The latest licensing arrangement allows multiple installations, the additional ones just don’t work (or tell you why).  I could access email via web mail I thought my Norton 360 was causing problems, until I used Thunderbird on one of the computers.

The latest version of Thunderbird looks a lot like Eudora, imports all Eudora settings and works like a dream.