It’s a Sunday

Yes a lazy Sunday is upon us, one last day off for me. I think I will do a little shopping today and later on maybe a bike ride.

This morning I was playing around in Windows and realized that I had installed Skype the app instead of the desktop version of Skype. I changed this right away. Man, the apps are just desktop hogs, when it comes to using space on the screen. If you want to talk to someone on Skype and use another program while chatting it would not work out to well with the app Skype. You know, thinking on this ………… if Microsoft really wanted to make in roads in the mobile area, one the things that I would like to see changed is the ability to see as many apps on a tablet or phone as I like with screens that could be sized as I like. In other words make the app world like the desktop world and not the other way around. I think this would be a good selling point for me. Yes, I like the ideal of re-sizable apps! There are a few apps that do this now and I have one called, Stick It, and it is a video app that I use to play podcast, needless to say it is one of my favorites.

I could not get an encryption software to work on all my devices, it is possible but it is not happening for me, I am missing something. I guess the big thing is I don’t know much about Linux. No matter, I took the long road and I am using two pieces of software, one to sync from Windows to Linux (Truecryt) and one to sync from Windows to Android (BoxCryptor) and I use Bropbox for the cloud in both cases. Both these pieces of software make a Drive on your computer so when I update a file that I want everywhere, I then  just drop that file in both Drives and then everything is synced with Bropbox.

Today is another nice cool day here in Deming, it is great that we are having these days of cooler weather, but it is sure not to last long, with it being near mid May already.

Time for a new bird and this week it is a Northern Cardinal on a rainy day in KY around 6 years ago. I would think that this is a summer rain and I was sating on the pouch with my camera on a tripod and just enjoying myself, I miss those days sometimes but not enough that I want to go back. No, I am never going back, it is just a part of my pass.

Enough for today, later.

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Back playing with Ubuntu

This morning I am doing laundry and playing around on the computer with Ubuntu. First thing was to get it connected to my new router (the Ubuntu OS, did Windows yesterday)  and that is done. The set up on the WiFiRanger was not to bad at all, pretty easy once you understand what’s going on in the settings. I like it, and I feel a little safer, but I do know that I am still going over WiFi with all my data. The speed of the WiFi here is about 2.5 Mbps, not too bad but it could be better. I wonder what is available here in Deming, NM?

I am still enjoying Ubuntu, a few things I can’t get working like I want but I know so little about Linux and if it was not for the easy interface of Ubuntu I would not be this far along, they have made it pretty nice. Two things I have not been able to do in Ubuntu is, one; find a good speech to text software or  a speech to text plug-in for Firefox that has a nice clear speech. I did find one for Chromium Web Browser that I installed and that one works pretty well so I just do a cut and paste from Firefox to Chromium. The second thing I have not been able to do is to get my encrypted files working. On Windows I use Dropbox and Boxcryptor but for Linux the combo should be Dropbox and Crpytkeeper (encfs, the Cryptkeeper is the interface)  but no luck on that for me, I simple can not get the Linux combo to open my encrypted files from Windows. If any of you Linux folks read this and can help, do drop me a line.

I think today will bring a bike ride to my life. It will be much-needed exercise and I think the knees will be all right too. On checking the weather closer, I feel a little wind blowing so hopefully it won’t get up too much.

Exercise update; I did get me a nice bike ride of about 10 miles and I may take another smaller ride later on.

Almost 3 pm and a slow day for me. I seen lots of folks show up to work on a water leak today but it seem to be leaking yet. Probably need a part or something they can’t get just yet.

Had just a few drops of rain today, a rare thing here in Deming so I did not get to ride the bike any more today, maybe tomorrow. I still need to do some stretching today.

Enough chat for today, later.

Lnog ride and a new Bird

Exercise this morning was a nice long bike ride (18+ miles). It was not a very fast ride but steady. I started out just thinking I would take a short ride and take my time at it too, but the more I rode the more I enjoyed it, so I just kept riding. On the way out I only went 8 to 10 mph because it was a little bit of a upgrade and I was taking my time anyway, but on the way back I felt good and it was just a little downgrade so I pumped it up to about 15 mph. Overall a great ride. I have rode for three days in a row now and maybe tomorrow will be time for a day off, we’ll see.

Click for a larger image.

Time for the Bird of the week. This week it will be one of pictures I have taken over the last 2 or 3 weeks of a Great Horned Owl and her chick. The first one (Left) was took 2 days ago and the second one (right) was took 2 or 3 weeks ago. Not the greatest pictures but you can see the chick. Two or three weeks has shown some growth, yes? Starting to look like an Owl, with them big old eyes. I hope to get a few more good shots of them before I leave at the first part of next month, so I still have a little over a week.  The chick should be a little bigger by the time I go. I know that this Owl has been in this nest for at least two years and I am told that they have use the same nest for the last 6 years. Did you know that Great Horned Owls don’t build their own nest? No, they find and use already build nest! So …… when the nest is no longer useable they just find another one, no repair work done by the Owls, them owls are lazy house keepers. The Great Horned Owl can live up too 38 years old.

The weather over the pass few days has been just tops with day temperatures going up to around 80 and the nights in the low 50s, that is some sweet weather if you ask me. There is a little part of the day that is kind of hot but the nights are just too dang good. I wish I could have this weather all year.

Before going on my ride this morning I did do a couple of chores, I did laundry and got a few gallons of fresh water for the RV. I was up early for some reason this morning, maybe it was because I had such good night’s sleep.

I have added a new piece of software to my Computer/Devices, and it is BoxCryptor. It is a piece of software/app that works with Dropbox  (or other cloud based software) and allows you to encrypt files just by dropping them in a folder/drive (actually it makes another drive on your computer, I named mine X drive). After it does its thing (encrypting) the Dropbox app ( or what ever cloud based software you use) uploads it to your cloud, making it available to all your computers/devices. Nice! The best thing about BoxCryptor is that it’s password never leaves your computer/devices.

Enough for today, Later.