Ubuntu 14.02 LTS

Walk: I walked with MapMyWalk+! Distance: 2.77mi, time: 01:00:17, pace: 21:44min/mi, speed: 2.76mi/h. My walk for today

Added another short walk. I walked with MapMyWalk+! Distance: 1.32mi, time: 28:38, pace: 21:45min/mi, speed: 2.76mi/h.
Another Short Walk

Workout Summary:
WORKOUT SUMMARY for 04/21/2014 – 04/27/2014
9 workouts
8 routes
16.9 miles
7.9 hours
2,219 kCal burned

Computer: Today I have been playing on the computer with Ubuntu. I installed a new version of the OS(14.02 LTS) and I am playing in it now as I do my post. Needless to say this has been most of my day, it is already near 3pm. Hey, I’m having fun 🙂 It is so nice to be hooked up to electric and be able to run the desktop all day and do these kind of fun things.

One of the first things I had to work out was to find a way to get my Evernotes to Ubuntu and I did that with a program called Everpad on Ubuntu. They work well together but the Everpad is not as full featured as Evernote by no means, but it gets the job done.

Bird: Sticking with the White Throated Sparrows, here is another picture, taken in KY.

Silly Problems: My first problem is that one of my batteries up and stop being able to charge so I had to remove it for my 4 battery system, meaning that I had to remove two of my batteries because they are wired in series/parallel arrangement (I have four 6volt batteries in a 12volt system). This is going to be a problem when I go back to the boon-docking, I’ll be down to half my power. The good part is that I will only be boon-docking for 10 days after I leave here, then I’ll be hooked-up to electric for the rest of the summer.

My next problem is that my browser of choice for Windows 8 on my desk-top is doing something silly and messing up the letters it puts on the screen. But only on the desktop with Windows and Firefox. I have Firefox running here in Ubuntu on the desktop and it is fine. More than likely something in the Windows Register messed up with the latest update. I tried to un-installing  and  reinstalling but it did not help. Well, it will give me something to fix later on.

Weather: A couple more days and this little cold snap should be over, hopefully. I have not enjoyed it LOL. Boo to cold weather 👿

Night folks

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Computer vs mobile

Computer: I have not been spending much time on my computer and this is causing me to neglect some of the things I usually do with my blog. I always try to get back to the likes and comments and I may be missing a few by staying on the tablet. I always get the notifications but it seems harder to respond. Ha, maybe I’m not as mobilize as I would like to be! At any rate, I don’t think the WordPress’s mobile app is as full featured as it web page version (overall I still think it is very good). I guess the bottom line here is that I miss some of the full blown features of a computer when I use just mobile devices a high percentage of the time. The world is just so full of trade offs, yes?

Solar and tilting, computer and mobile: Did you know that tilting your solar panels up in the winter helps capture more solar power? The technical part of this can get kind of deep, here is a link if you want to study up on it. I don’t get all this technical about it. The basic ideal is that in the winter the sun is very low in the southern sky and tilting your solar panels up in a southern direction will help capture a good deal more energy. If you have a house you can tilt your panels and forget about it. However in a RV you can not have your panels tilted up when you move and for that reason many folks in RVs don’t tilt their panels up in the winter, because you either have to climb up on top of your RV and do this manually or have a very expensive mechanical tilt system installed. I manually tilt my panels when I am going to be staying still for at least a couple of weeks.
There are about 3 months that I do this and that is December January and February. If you are a big time solar user like me, these are the hardest months to keep your batteries at the best charge and especially when your batteries are 7 years old like mine are this year. Even though I am doing fine, I have been a little conservative this year with my computer use and other power use during the day, to conserve battery energy. The reason I was writing/thinking about this is because it is one of the driving forces making me want to be more mobile this year, thereby causing me to use the computer less. Mind you, another driving force for using mobile is the sheer convenience of it, as I wrote about in earlier post.
Just one more note on this, my laptop computer is not that much of a power hog and I could probably use it all I want, but with the power drain and convinces of mobile use, it just ain’t getting all that much love this year, LOL!

Walk: I am debating on the ideal of a walk. My knee could use the rest but the rest of my body is raring to go, what to do? I’ll think on it a while.
Yes, I did walk and this time I recorded it with two apps. Neither of which is making me real happy. MapMyWalk and Google Tracks.

I walked with MapMyWalk+! Distance: 2.45mi, time: 44:09, pace: 18:01min/mi, speed: 3.33mi/h.
http://mapmywalk.com/workout/482074007 At least with MapMyWalk you see the map in the right way, unlike Google’s My Tracks below.

Google’s version.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0TCgnl9btqhdERUVlhoUkthZGc/edit?usp=drivesdk

Created by Google My Tracks on Android

Name: 18221 Tom Wells Rd
Activity type: walking
Description: –
Total distance: 3.93 km (2.4 mi)
Total time: 45:12
Moving time: 43:14
Average speed: 5.22 km/h (3.2 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 5.45 km/h (3.4 mi/h)
Max speed: 14.15 km/h (8.8 mi/h)
Average pace: 11:30 min/km (18:30 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 11:00 min/km (17:42 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 4:14 min/km (6:49 min/mi)
Max elevation: 212 m (696 ft)
Min elevation: 163 m (534 ft)
Elevation gain: 669 m (2196 ft)
Max grade: 2391 %
Min grade: -18 %
Recorded: 2/11/2014 10:33am

I can’t seen to get Google Tracks to map right 😦 It puts a bunch of straight lines on the map that should not be there. It may be something on my end, I uninstalled the app and reinstalled it but that didn’t seen to help.

Night folks

Heat wave?

Wow it is almost 50 ° and it is only 11am. I like it, and tomorrow should be even better. The weather man says it will make 62 today so maybe I will get to ride the bike for exercise. I will give it another 2 hours to see where the temperature and wind is, and then decide.

Computer/updating/bandwidth; I updated LibreOffice on the laptop yesterday and it was a big one, little over 200 mbs. Updates uses a big part of your bandwidth when you only have mobile bandwidth type provider, in my case Verizon air-card. I get 5 gigs on the card. I do have the smart-phone from Verizon too and that is where I try to keep my video type downloads. I use more on the phone than the air-card, on the phone I use near 10 gigs a month.  I will be switching to someone else when my contract is up this spring. The air-card will go first and in its place I will probably get the Millenicom 20 gig plan(which rides on the Verizon backbone ) it will cost me $20.00 more a month but I get 15 more gigs, a good deal you ask me. The Verizon smart phone is just too costly and I will drop it at some point, and look for something cheaper. I know I won’t have the unlimited data on it no more but with the 20 gig from Millenicom I can do what video I do on the laptop. Maybe for a smart phone, I will look at T-Mobile if they go ahead with plans to drop their subsidized phone contracts and go with cheaper monthly plans (this is rumored to be happening).  Best part of Millenicom is they have no contracts. Not sure how the new plans on T-mobile will work just yet.

Just got done with my stretching, after a 10 mile bike ride. I enjoyed being back on the bike after all the cold weather keeping me from riding. I feel like I have satisfied my need to move, for today. My knees fuss some during the ride, but not to bad after the ride, so hopefully they won’t get to hurting much, later on this evening.

On my second glass of tea for the day, and it sure taste good 🙂  . It is of no matter, next week I will be cutting back to one glass a day. Once off the tea I will give it a month to see if my weight moves any at all, if not I might  allow myself to go back to a couple of glasses a day. I know that I will miss my tea 😦 . First I must break the habit before I can allow myself to start it again, LOL!

It sure has been a fine day, weather wise. Tomorrow promises to be even better. I think I will get out and enjoy some of this fine weather.

Later folks.

Another day working on the computer

I should get most of the things I need done on the computer over with today. I am liking Windows 8 fine but I did run into a couple of little problems. I have most of my basic everyday programs back on the computer now so when I am hook up again I will be set. I say that because I will be using the laptop most in just a few more days and only turning on the desktop one or two times a month or so over the winter.  I will more than likely upgrade the laptop to Windows 8 later on.

OK time to get out and get my day going, I did get a early start on my exercise this morning by walking couple miles.

I have paid most of my bills, only rent left to pay. I’ll do that in a few minutes.

Later.

Computer

Busy getting things going on the computer. I have tried to get everything up to date and back in order. It is a big job when you start from scratch, but it is the thing I wanted to do. My CD/DVD drives did not work with Windows 8 ( they are about 7 years old, so no fuss) so both have to be replaced. I have replaced one so far.

I have computer parts all over the place. LOL. There is a ton of software to install, programs I have had for years but I won’t get them all at once. I have many of the main ones in and moving along slowly. The none-working DVD drives slow me big time.

I got my exercise (walk) done yesterday but I missed it today. I will have to make sure I can get it done tomorrow.

My friend is heading out tomorrow so it will leave me with no hang out friends. I have other friends here but they are busy doing the rally things. I will probably only stay a week more or maybe less.

Trying speech recognition again(with Windows 8).  But it’s about the same as it always was.  I get hung up on one word and then it takes me more time to fix that one word then it would have for me to type the whole sentence.  LOL! I guess I will just keep typing.

Staying busy, still

I have been near getting on my computer half-dozen times today and just now getting on at 5:30 pm.  Each time I sat down at the computer I would get up and do something else.

I did get something done today, I got one of my Wells Fargo account shut down and that is something I have meant to do for a spell now. Ha, now there will be no more fees! Couple of days and I will move all the Money from that account to another bank.

I guess the thing is that I am staying busy doing other fun things and that is good. I like doing different things from time to time.

 

Enjoying the weather

I have been spending time outside and enjoying the beautiful days. If I order the weather the way I wanted it to be, the last 4 or 5 days would be just have I would want it. My time out today so far has been a great walk, a long one of 5 to 7 miles, fine day for it.

Computers; I have not had my desktop running in weeks. I guess I am getting use to the ideal of just a laptop. Maybe at some point I could do away with the desktop. I guess the big computer now-a-days is a laptop with a tablet or Smartphone being the smaller computer, LOL.

I am starting to watch all the new stuff that is coming out …………….. looking to see just how I will replace my Smart-phone. There are rumors that the next Ipod may have 3g connectivity, that could open up some possibility.

Chores Again

Chores are never done are they? Today I went into Cloudcroft and did a load of laundry which included my sheets this time so I should be caught up for at least a week.

Weather is still cool and wet. I still need to get out and do my exercise. I hope the rain will let me have a spot that is not so wet. It is staying mostly overcast and the sun only gets out every now and then.

I am happy with my solar as it is doing very well during all the overcast days. My batteries are staying up just fine. I don’t use a lot of power, mostly for the computer and a little TV which neither one take much to operate. Of course, there is the water pump and lights but again …………. not much power needed for those either.  I feel like the one thing I got right on my rig was the solar, a very good investment indeed. I am sometimes surprised about how well it does.

I am also very happy with my direction antenna I got a couple of weeks back, it is doing a fine job. There were days that I just could not get connected to the internet at all before I got the antenna and since hooking it up I have at least been able to get connected even it is not very fast sometimes, I do at least get connected. Of course I have the 3G amp too. I give it away to a friend last summer and the friend give it back to me this spring and it is a good thing because I would not be getting connected without it. Later this summer or maybe this fall they will have the newer amp which will cover both 3G and 4G and I will buy one when they come around. I feel that the internet connection thing is a much have for me.  I get off in area like this that are hard to connect from and it makes the amps and antennas important tools to have. I don’t see me not getting off into area like this anytime soon, I kind of like them.

The internet will continue to be an expense to me. However the smart phone may be a goner when my contact is up, the cost is just too much and I can do the same thing a different way. I may drop Verizon all together next spring. I might just go with Millenicom next time. I can get more data from them and they are on Verizon/Sprint  network(the plan I would get is on the Verizon network). After hooking up with this plan I could get rid of the smart phone and use a tablet and MiFi device to do the mobile data thing and go to a lot cheaper phone plan. We’ll see.

OK time for me to get up, out and about ………… exercise time. Later.

4pm update; Exercise is done, a short 2 mile walk. Also have had my second meal. The sky has stayed pretty much overcast all day. Man it would be nice to have some clear days but that might not be in the cards. I think that maybe June is the month to be here.

My desktop computer is not well

Something has happen to my desktop computer. The USB connections are not working correctly , it is not recognizing my devices. Well when it hits it all comes at once don’t it? LOL. Could not come at a worst time. I had such good luck out of the computer I built before this one but not so much for this one. I guess three 3 years ain’t bad but the last one I built got over 5 years uses. Oh well that is the way it goes, sometime you luck out and other times you don’t. I may not replace this one, but instead go to laptops only, smaller and about as cheap now-a-days. On the computer front I need to do a little testing of things, like running the big monitor on this laptop and maybe the keyboard too. I will give that a shot soon.

This morning I run into Cloudcroft, and messed around for a while.

Well I am thinking again and this time I am thinking about how I could downsize and save money too. My income vs outgoing is not doing the best these days and I am needing to come up with a new plan. I need to either make more money or live cheaper ……… one of the two, if not both. It is hard on my old brain ……… to think so hard LOL.

Sore back

The back is a little sore today but none the less I did a 3 mile walk and a bit of stretching, exercise done. I was very careful with the stretching, not putting any pressure on the back. I may have even made it feel a little better, of course tonight may tell yet another story LOL. When I started the walk every step hurt just a tab but it got better as I went. It will take a few days to get back to normal.

The Solar charger is running a little weak today with the overcast sky coming and going but I am sure by days end I will have plenty battery power. My solar system is doing a great job this year.

Time on the computer/smartphone always surprises me with how fast it goes by. I sat down and do a few things look up and hour has passed. I like now that I have the smart-phone because I can use it for many of the little things that I check on the web such weather and other things that only take a minute or two. Smartphones are one of the better inventions in the last few years.

Meeting people is sometimes surprising, as far is what they believe to be the truth. I try not to judge folks for what they believe but still one will surprise me now and again. I guess the boon-docks is the prime place to meet folks with different ideals. LOL, I will say no more.