Far away, in a distant galaxy, there lives a kind old man who has a small country cottage, surrounded by flowers, where he raises beautiful kittens. One day, not long ago, the old man fell down, and he knew, as he fell, that he was falling because the world had lost its proper ups and downs. Later, the old man thought long upon it, and realized that his planet had been invaded by aliens who were upsetting the balance of the natural ups and downs.
The old man thought some more about it. Was he being called by the Path to save the world from the evil aliens? The answer came to him as a voice in a dream, “No, old man, you are not the one to save the world, you just have to save the old women who live near you, of whom there are many, and they are being sorely attacked by viruses, worms, adware, spyware, and even the dreaded Trojans.”
The old man went to see a great wizard who lives in a nearby village. “Oh Great Wizard, High Holy Fizzishun, please tell me how I am to save the old women from viruses, worms, adware, spyware, and even the dreaded Trojans,” pleaded the old man.
Holding out a small bottle filled with small, white, perfectly formed pebbles, the High Holy Fizzishun said, “Take one of these after breakfast and another after dinner. They will give you a great power.”
The next morning, after a simple breakfast of porridge, the old man took one of the small pebbles out of the bottle, looked at it with some doubt showing on his wrinkled old face, but then placed it on his tongue and swallowed the pebble. Nothing happened.
About thirty minutes later the old man felt a flea bite his ankle. “Drat,” he said, for the old man did not care for fleas or their bites. But then another bit him on the same ankle. Then, as he reached down to scratch his ankle, something started tickling the inside of his ear. Soon, his eyelids were burning, his lips were burning, his nostrils were burning, and so were all the edges of the rest of his body's orifices. The he noticed his skin was turning red, not just ordinary red but RED red.
And at that moment, the old man became The Scarlet Geezer, protector of old women against the evil attacks of viruses, worms, adware, spyware, and even the dreaded Trojans. For an hour his skin glowed like a bed of hot coals and his orifices, all his orifices, felt like hundreds of needles were sticking in them. Running through his mind, dancing on the tips of the burning needles, was one thought, “Install Linux, it will protect the old women from viruses, worms, adware, spyware, and even the dreaded Trojans.”
As I may have mentioned before, somewhere, a female friend who is some twelve to fifteen years younger than me, once told me, “Older people do not want to learn new things,” and then, of course, I failed to think of the reply, “And young people, even those old enough to know better, can be exceptionally stupid.” She was partially correct, though. Some old women sometimes express a resistance to learning something new and complex. Some young men express a resistance to learning something new and complex. And besides, Linux is neither new, nor complex to use.
I should be able to install Linux and be ready to give the box back to you within an hour, but please note that I said should. The truth is that a few small parts of my brain have reconstituted themselves into scrambled eggs, or something similar. Thus, I sometimes make mistakes. However, now that I am The Scarlet Geezer, super hero, I hope to become more adept and perhaps achieve a one day turnaround on Linux installs. Once it is installed, I like to spend an hour or so with the users acquainting them with Linux and how to make good use of it.
The Scarlet Geezer's super powers no longer extend to driving an automobile. If, though, you would like to pick me up and take me home, I can spend a half day in your home, tutoring you and helping you set up all your online accounts. If you have some technical type person in your family who might be able to do the install and would like for me to help by telephone, I would be glad to do so.
[Super heroes are not supposed to charge for their services, so I guess I'll have to do this for nothing. However, the waspish housekeeper who works for me demands that computer owners pay her $50 for storing their computers in my office for a Linux installation.]
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Web Mail and POP Mail
I had a question from a reader: I have a small laptop and a PC. My PC email is working fine. My router is working because the laptop is online. Even though I have exactly the same email program in both, Eudora 6.2, and I have checked and rechecked that ALL the settings are exactly the same, the laptop Eudora cannot connect to my mail server. I've tried and tried and it times out.
It's just as well it doesn't work. You are using a POP mail client, Eudora, and trying to use it with two different computers. If you want to access a mail account from more than one location, use Web Mail, which means getting it with your browser.
I went to the Qwest web site, www.qwest.com, and found, at the very top, a link called 'check email'. I clicked it and discovered it requires Windows. I suggest you get a gmail account and forget Qwest.
Linux for Seniors (and everyone else)
Recently I have installed Ubuntu Linux on five or six home computers. I have been using Ubuntu at home for some time and think that it is now superior to Windows for seniors. Now I know, as a woman some fifteen years younger than me had the temerity to say, "Old people don't like to learn anything new." In this case, it's worth the trouble.
Linux is not troubled by viruses, worms, adware, spyware, or trojans. Linux does not run slower and slower every year you use it. Linux does not need complicated maintenance routines. And, finally, Linux and all the programs that run on it are free. Linux is open source software, a movement that, after decades of slow growth, is finally moving into the mainstream of personal computing.
For a while, I will try to write about starting with Linux. The stories will be short, as I have a short attention span.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
TIA?
I think it was a Transient Ischemic Attack, known in the doctoring trade as a TIA. Whatever it was, it was one of the damnedest experiences I've ever had, with or without the influences of strange medical, commercial, or recreational drugs. It only lasted about twenty minutes, which was long enough, and I do not care to repeat the experience.
There isn't any residual effect as far as I can tell. I can remember my children's names, my address and phone number, and I can look on my wrist to see what day it is. (Wikipedia has an article about TIA.) The experience, for me, was almost entirely visual. I was working on Rene's computer when I lost the ability to look to the left of center, I would have to turn my head to look to the left. I checked, and it was the same with either eye closed. As it progressed, I became locked in, visually, on the close box in the upper right corner of a window. I couldn't look away at anything else for more than an instant, and then my focus snapped back to that little 'X' in the corner. Again, it was the same with either eye closed, which told me that something was probably occurring in the brain, not the eye or optic nerve.
During all this I was able to clearly describe the sensations I was experiencing to Rene'. About five minutes after it started, I was able to start moving my eyes off the little 'X' and look to the right of me. I realized I was sweating profusely and slipped off my jacket. Then Rene' suggested I go to the living room and sit in a reclining chair. I was light-headed, and there was a very loud but inaudible buzzing going on in my head, but I was able to stand and walk about 20' into the next room and sit down in a chair.
After sitting for a while I finally stopped sweating and my vision cleared up. I wasn't dead, and didn't feel like I was dying, so I got up, went out to my car, and drove home. That was a mistake. I didn't run over any dogs or children, but my wife was not happy with me. She thought I should have called her to pick me up. Hell, I figured out I was invincible when I was a teenager, so there was nothing to worry about.
After much insistence by my spouse, I ended up in the emergency room about ten hours after the attack. Becky, the nurse who took care of me there, looked a lot like Julia Roberts, only younger, so it wasn't a bad experience at all. The doc, though, decided I needed to stay in the hospital for a few days. While there I was poked, prodded, scanned, and screwed around, but nothing particularly painful was done.
The main problem was the food. I would rather eat stewed possum than most hospital food. No salt, no fats, and all vegetables boiled for at least an hour before being well cooled and served. Red beans and brown rice would have been a lot more edible.
The admission process was very interesting, especially the part where they tried to compile a list of my current medications. I keep a spreadsheet with my current meds on www.GeezerNet.com. Anybody should have been able to fire up their web browser, point it at GeezerNet, enter the username and password I give them, and navigate straight to my current medications page.
I run GeezerNet, both .com and .US, on a very old server I own that sits in a laundry room in the back of an old building next to the library in Oskaloosa. It is not an ideal setting for a server, nor is the server reliable. The general unreliability of the whole setup became apparent when I went into the hospital, and discovered that www.GeezerNet.com was not available.
With no written record of my current medications available, it was Friday evening and both my primary physician's office and the cardiologist's officer were closed, nor could the ER at Lawrence memorial search access the data sets except by a telephone request from human to human, so it became their duty to somehow extract from me a complete and accurate list of my current medications. Remember, I'm in there because something went wrong in my brain.
The staff was courteous, pleasant, and professional, and I estimated that the average cost for their time was about $150 per hour (that is cost, not pay rate). If that is a valid assumption, then the approximately 90 minutes spent by three nurses, two pharmacists, and two physicians in determining my current medications, cost all of us $225. That $225 never appears on any bill or report, because it is just ordinary overhead, so it is never noticed as an incredible waste of money.
GeezerNet could be hosted on a commercial hosting site for less than $60 per year, so I could have had it in a secure and reliable environment for three years for less money than it cost the health care system to find my current medications. If I couldn't have given them the password to my health records, the primary care physician I see has it, and so does my wife, who was with me.
There is no reason I can see, other than mass organizational myopia, for the records of the hospital, the physicians' offices, and the pharmacies, to not be available to each other and the ER of every hospital. Our health care system does not have a IT infrastructure. By clinging to the same narrow visions of information technology that characterized the decline of the mainframe computer, the health care system has severely inhibited it's ability to develop an information infrastructure. And that is costing all of us money that doesn't need to be spent.
And that was what I was thinking about most of the time I was in the hospital, being examined because something went wrong in my brain.
There isn't any residual effect as far as I can tell. I can remember my children's names, my address and phone number, and I can look on my wrist to see what day it is. (Wikipedia has an article about TIA.) The experience, for me, was almost entirely visual. I was working on Rene's computer when I lost the ability to look to the left of center, I would have to turn my head to look to the left. I checked, and it was the same with either eye closed. As it progressed, I became locked in, visually, on the close box in the upper right corner of a window. I couldn't look away at anything else for more than an instant, and then my focus snapped back to that little 'X' in the corner. Again, it was the same with either eye closed, which told me that something was probably occurring in the brain, not the eye or optic nerve.
During all this I was able to clearly describe the sensations I was experiencing to Rene'. About five minutes after it started, I was able to start moving my eyes off the little 'X' and look to the right of me. I realized I was sweating profusely and slipped off my jacket. Then Rene' suggested I go to the living room and sit in a reclining chair. I was light-headed, and there was a very loud but inaudible buzzing going on in my head, but I was able to stand and walk about 20' into the next room and sit down in a chair.
After sitting for a while I finally stopped sweating and my vision cleared up. I wasn't dead, and didn't feel like I was dying, so I got up, went out to my car, and drove home. That was a mistake. I didn't run over any dogs or children, but my wife was not happy with me. She thought I should have called her to pick me up. Hell, I figured out I was invincible when I was a teenager, so there was nothing to worry about.
After much insistence by my spouse, I ended up in the emergency room about ten hours after the attack. Becky, the nurse who took care of me there, looked a lot like Julia Roberts, only younger, so it wasn't a bad experience at all. The doc, though, decided I needed to stay in the hospital for a few days. While there I was poked, prodded, scanned, and screwed around, but nothing particularly painful was done.
The main problem was the food. I would rather eat stewed possum than most hospital food. No salt, no fats, and all vegetables boiled for at least an hour before being well cooled and served. Red beans and brown rice would have been a lot more edible.
The admission process was very interesting, especially the part where they tried to compile a list of my current medications. I keep a spreadsheet with my current meds on www.GeezerNet.com. Anybody should have been able to fire up their web browser, point it at GeezerNet, enter the username and password I give them, and navigate straight to my current medications page.
I run GeezerNet, both .com and .US, on a very old server I own that sits in a laundry room in the back of an old building next to the library in Oskaloosa. It is not an ideal setting for a server, nor is the server reliable. The general unreliability of the whole setup became apparent when I went into the hospital, and discovered that www.GeezerNet.com was not available.
With no written record of my current medications available, it was Friday evening and both my primary physician's office and the cardiologist's officer were closed, nor could the ER at Lawrence memorial search access the data sets except by a telephone request from human to human, so it became their duty to somehow extract from me a complete and accurate list of my current medications. Remember, I'm in there because something went wrong in my brain.
The staff was courteous, pleasant, and professional, and I estimated that the average cost for their time was about $150 per hour (that is cost, not pay rate). If that is a valid assumption, then the approximately 90 minutes spent by three nurses, two pharmacists, and two physicians in determining my current medications, cost all of us $225. That $225 never appears on any bill or report, because it is just ordinary overhead, so it is never noticed as an incredible waste of money.
GeezerNet could be hosted on a commercial hosting site for less than $60 per year, so I could have had it in a secure and reliable environment for three years for less money than it cost the health care system to find my current medications. If I couldn't have given them the password to my health records, the primary care physician I see has it, and so does my wife, who was with me.
There is no reason I can see, other than mass organizational myopia, for the records of the hospital, the physicians' offices, and the pharmacies, to not be available to each other and the ER of every hospital. Our health care system does not have a IT infrastructure. By clinging to the same narrow visions of information technology that characterized the decline of the mainframe computer, the health care system has severely inhibited it's ability to develop an information infrastructure. And that is costing all of us money that doesn't need to be spent.
And that was what I was thinking about most of the time I was in the hospital, being examined because something went wrong in my brain.
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