Bev The Geek - Wired in the Bitterroot » Montana

Western Heritage Days June 18-19, 2010

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 03:15:33 +0000

Here is the Event Schedule from the Stevensville Main Street Association for this weekend’s events for Western Heritage Days. You won’t want to miss it! Lots of events, a parade, good food, music, a beer garden, and the historic home tours. I volunteered for one shift of the historic home tours because I would like to learn more about the homes in Stevensville and afterward I volunteered for one shift at the beer garden, serving beer – not tasting! Too fun!

See the attached schedule for all the events.

Western Heritage Days June 18-19, 2010 is a post from: Bev The Geek - Wired in the Bitterroot

Need for Speed

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:43:11 +0000

The FCC (the U.S. Federal Communications Commission) announced that by 2020, it expects to require Internet providers to offer minimum home connection speeds up to 100 Mbps (megabits per second).

While AT&T and Qwest think it is unrealistic, Verizon already offers speeds up to 50 Mbps and Google is on the brink of offering up high speed to millions of people in the U.S. Once again proving innovation wins over regulation.

Verizon’s spokesman was quite optimistic in the FCC’s announcement stating, “(One gigabit per second) as discussed in current news reports is a lot of signal; typically enough for many massive business operations,” Verizon said in a statement that referred to Google’s plan to test a network with those speeds. “But we could make it happen over the FiOS network without much trouble, should a market for it develop.” Verizon is the third-largest provider of Internet services and actually has a more advanced network than either AT&T or Qwest. Verizon’s spokesman said that they have already completed testing the 100 Mbps speeds through its fiber-optic FiOS network.

When Alltel split in Montana, half of its customers went to Verizon and half went to AT&T due to anti-trust concerns. I’m sure the AT&T half of Alltel customers will be bemoaning their fate at this juncture when Verizon speeds ahead and AT&T is left in the dust of this technology race. On the other hand, the race is not over. May the best and fastest Internet connection win!

You can read the full article here.

Need for Speed is a post from: Bev The Geek - Wired in the Bitterroot

Apple’s iPad Début

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:22:20 +0000

Apple’s iPad débuted this week and oh what a début! They had been working on this for 7 years. While all the other PC makers were introducing touchpads, Apple wanted to get it right. Awesome. But, like any introduction, I would wait to puchase one until at least the second or third generation. It can’t task more than one application at a time — for me (and most users) that is the kiss of death. I multitask and need several applications open at the same time. It doesn’t get along with Adobe Flash…yet. I would have thought they would at least have gotten that up and working, so that was a bit of a disappointment. But, all in all, good for them. Congrats Apple. I will probably always be a “PC” but this might just win me over!

Apple’s iPad Début is a post from: Bev The Geek - Wired in the Bitterroot

Making Healthy Choices

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:40:09 +0000

The weight loss world talks a lot about making “healthy” choices. Have you ever thought about what makes a computer purchase ‘healthy?’ I’m talking about healthy as in your ‘pocketbook’ AND an Excellent computer purchase. How can we make a healthy choice regarding our computers when we often feel like we aren’t really making the choice at all? We walk into the Big Box store and find ourselves buying that computer from the flyer before we even know what happened. I mean, it was such a GOOD PRICE! Right? Or, we are in the office supply store thinking we need to avoid the computer aisle and the next thing we know we are in the car with some new device we weren’t even sure we needed. That is an essential question. In order to be in charge of our choices, we need to figure out exactly what happened. That way, we won’t feel controlled by our “bad” decisions and compulsive purchases.

For many of us, what happened goes something like this: As we walked into the big box store and saw the rows of computers, many thoughts bombarded us in a flash. “My computer is so slow, I wish I had a new one, but I shouldn’t buy it now, there are so many to choose from, and I will be sorry if I don’t buy just the right one. But the price seems right and I’m here…the computers are here…I deserve a new computer! But I shouldn’t…that’s so impulsive. Then another voice chimes in. “I want what I want when I want it. And I need it now.” Suddenly, I am feeling angry that I can’t buy a new computer now and everyone else can, and I really want it, and I hate these decisions. You get the idea. So you pick up the best computer you see on the shelf or maybe the best priced computer and take it home ready to enjoy it. Then you find out that Office is just a trial, so you have to make another purchase; and the printer that came in your wonderfully priced ‘bundle’ is a cheap piece of plastic, so you need to go buy a printer; oh, and the warranty…that ends up not being with the manufacturer of the computer at all, but with the big box store. If only they would fix it for you; but it has to be shipped off to who knows where to get fixed (for two weeks) and it has all your Personal Data on it! The entire time you are stressing about your data, who is looking at it, who is extracting copying it, and how can you get any work done without a computer?

Arrggh!

In order to conquer the inner battle that leads to unhealthy choices it is essential to become aware of these thoughts and be able to recognize and hear them as they are happening. This inner dialogue is called self talk. It is both possible and necessary to detect these often unconscious thoughts. We can focus our attention on what is going on in our mind and how we are talking to ourselves. Get a pad or notebook and have it handy for jotting down these thoughts as you bring them to you consciousness. After we have become more familiar with the self talk that generates our choices, we can learn to reframe these thoughts to be a supportive and productive aide to ourselves in making healthy and satisfying choices in our purchases.

Give Bev The Geek a call for assistance in purchasing your next computer. Maybe all you need is an upgrade… did you know: “More memory: It’s the quickest, easiest, cheapest upgrade.” - PC Magazine.

Making Healthy Choices is a post from: Bev The Geek - Wired in the Bitterroot