PSoTD

I'm just going through old software services that I've bookmarked but never used, and am clearing the decks. From time to time I'll post a query about them. So here is today's: Has anyone used Discuss This, the discussion email list service?

I'm not sure how useful it is, but searchCrystal provides interesting results for image searches.

I Twitter. And it's amazing stuff, if, when I write amazing, you immediately think of ordinary.

There's no there there.

Well, a scanner that works. I do have an HP scanner, but haven't used it in two computer upgrades, for two reasons:

The connecting serial cable didn't have a port of the right pin/size on the upgrades; and

I rarely need to use a scanner in the first place.

But, occasion came this week that maybe I could use a scanner, and I looked to find a converter so that I could plug this bad boy cable into a USB port.

HA HA HA.

Went to 4 stores, nobody had the proper plug converter. "It's rare", "I can't find one in our computer", and the very comforting "it might be easier to buy a new scanner or a printer with a scanner" were a common theme.

I have found a workaround for my lack-of-scanner situation this week and am not going to worry about this cable any more. I wish I had thought of it before driving to to all these stores, but I mindlessly thought this converter would be easy.

And we do want to get a new printer at some point, one with wireless linkup so we can print from the laptop as well, so when that time comes, I'll look for one that also has a scanner. Forget that old HP scanner.

I noticed a few days ago that my catch-all email address, which is generally where almost all of my spam goes but requires checking every few days because some legitimate form e-mail, such as invoices, sometimes get routed there, was down considerably in volume. I was concerned, because my experience has been that this usually happens when a spamfilter has been adjusted, and adjusted poorly by an ISP to be way too aggressive and screening out too wide of a range of email.

I feel better today, because I don't seem to be missing anything legitimate - it's just that apparently a VERY MAJOR SPAMMER has been disconnected, at least for now. It has cut my spam volume from about 1500 messages a day to around 800.

THANK YOU.

QUIT CALLING US ABOUT FIOS!!!!!!! WE SAID NO!!!!!

Okay, I'll try not to be that gullible again.

I did not know that people can schedule their tweet messages.

Real life, on the map.

Funny. We have the red ring of death for the XBox we bought last Christmas, and I contacted Microsoft and they're going to fix it, and they send out a box to use as packaging to send it in. No Microsoft or XBox markings on the box, just a plain, white box.

I go into the local UPS Store, and the lady behind the counter asks, "That an XBox?"

Yes, I said - how did she know?

"Oh, we get them all the time," she answered. Turns out ours was the third one being sent back today.

And I thought - it sure would be interesting if some UPS Store employee somewhere shared that kind of information in their blog.

Ugh, what a waste of time that was. I loaded IE8 Beta on my computer yesterday, and then later yesterday I couldn't open my McAfee screen to check the status of updates. I tried to deleting and reinstalling McAfee, it didn't help. Finally, I ran across this nugget on a Tech Support Forum:

I am currently using Mcafee ver. 10.0.21 and have not been able to see anything in the Security Center window. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling but got the same problem.

...

Further down on the page, I find this:

I had the exact problem you did. After reading your thread as well as many others, I remembered I had installed Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. I was also experiencing computer slowdown, slow booting and non recognition of external hard drive at boot up. I removed through the Control Panel IE 7.0 Beta 2, which went smoothly and was replaced by IE 6.0. As a result I now have all those problems solved and can read the Mcafee Security Window. Short Answer- remove IE 7.0 Beta 2.

Now the versions of everything is different, but I figured, if Microsoft caused the problem in an earlier IE Beta version, why not again? So, I delete the IE Beta version, rebooted, and wala... McAfee shows up again.

What a waste of time.