Sick Computer

 The desktop computer at home REFUSES to turn on. What is with that? After surfing through various online forums (via my iPad) I have diagnosed a possible power supply problem. That is more than I want to deal with, so after opening it up and cleaning out the dust I dropped it off at the computer repair doc.

I have been trying to get a little more time out of this tired ole Vista-running computer, but it might be time to upgrade. Depends on what doc finds. I am hoping that I can cannibalize the old one for pieces and parts for the new one (if I have to buy a new one). That way I can get just a basic tower and add the enhancements from the old one.

And so, I wait.

UPDATE 3/10/15: Just as I suspected, it is the power supply. But because this is one of the slimline models, the computer doctor doesn't keep this model in stock and has to order it. I'll have the desktop back next week. At least now I know time with this desktop is more limited than I thought and I'll have to get crackin' on figuring out what software I have will need to be upgraded so it can run on a different platform. 

Bye Bye Google Reader

As most Bloggers know, Google Reader is being killed off and won't be around after July 1. Sniff. I LIKED Google Reader for it's clean utilitarian interface and in the search for a new RSS feeder, I tried several different ones and ended up using

Unlike Google Reader, Feedly is slick and modern. After using it for a while I have come to love it.♥♥♥ I love the magazine layout of the feeds and the ease of importing my subscriptions -- oo la la! Since I haven't really converted to Google+ I was unsure if the blogs I follow would still be there after July 1, so I made sure to still have a subscription as a non-follower to those blogs.

If you haven't made a decision on what reader to use, I highly recommend Feedly.

Heads Up

Have you heard? Google has decided to shut down Google Reader on July 1, 2013. You can read an article about it here at CNet.


I've been using Google Reader ever since Bloglines shut down. Because I have been using Feedly on my tablet, I decided to try out the web version. Here's a link to a post from Feedly about migrating from Google Reader to Feedly. If you sign up for Feedly before July 1, there will be a seamless migration from Google Reader into Feedly. Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy.

I am not a BOT

and my eyes are too old to read those word verification things especially when the letters are kerned together. I get so frustrated when I type in what I see and get rejected over and over. I think I'm not alone. So I have turned off word verification. I sure wish Blogger would give us numbers instead of being alphanumeric. If I get a lot of spam, I will have to moderate messages.

A Saturday Work Day

• Several hours were spent this morning backing up the desktop computer, the external hard drive and the laptop. Hours. I should not have left it so long. I also copied all the PDF documents and PDF books onto the laptop so I can read them. What a concept. I tried reading them on the Kindle but it was so frustrating because I had to enlarge the font and then scroll to the right to finish the sentence and then back to the left and down for the next sentence was downright maddening.
• I was running low on laundry detergent so I made up a batch of this homemade version per Elaine's recommendation. You can't beat the price. I had an empty 5 gallon paint bucket that is now for laundry soap, it is a bit of overkill is you make a single batch, but if you make a double batch, believe me, you will need one.
• With the new, deeper mattress I have some cotton sheets that no longer fit and I am considering using them for the backs of quilts. Has anyone done this?
• Speaking of bedding, the quilt pictured at the top of this post is one I made Auntie in 1988. When she went into assisted living I regained ownership. This was the first queen sized quilt that I made and I made a sampler quilt because I wanted to try all these different blocks. I kept running out of reds and in the 1980's, 100% cotton was not readily available so this quilt has a lot of blends. It is interesting to note that the 100% cottons that ARE there have faded a lot. Each over-sized block (finished at 16.5") was separately lap-quilted ala Georgia Bonesteel. This is the first time I realized the value of a striped fabric: it makes it look pieced when it really isn't. The hand quilting has hearts and cables through a polyester batt.
• This weekend's sewing is to put together a Messenger Bag. I bought a kit for this at the Denver Quilt Festival last year from Sew Batik and I thought it was time to make it. Everything but the bag fastenings are in the kit, I just need to do it.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Don't mind me, I'm just configuring some stuff. 

Bye Bye Bloglines

It has come to my attention that Bloglines is closing shop on Oct. 1. If you use Bloglines as your blog reader you will have to find a new reader. Here is a step-by-step tutorial for bringing all your blogs from Bloglines into Google Reader. Are you ready?

You need to have a Google Account which you already have if your blog is in Google Blogger.

1) Sign out of your blog
2) Go to Google.com.
3) In the upper right hand corner of the Google screen you will see "Sign In". Click it.
4) Fill in the blanks. The email and password are the ones you use to sign into your blog
5) Now that you are signed in the screen looks just about normal except you will see your email addy up in the upper right hand corner.
6) Look in the upper left corner of the screen. If you do not see the word "Reader" then click on the word "More". If you still don't see it in the drop down menu click on "Even More" and you will be in the Google page of all the apps they offer. Look under "Communicate, Show & Share" and pick "Reader"
7) You will now have the "Reader" page.
8) At this point I want you to open another browser window/tab. If you do not know how to do this don't worry.
9) Go to your Bloglines account. From the "My Feeds" page, click "Edit Link" at the top of the left panel. There will be a link to export you subscriptions in OPML formal. Choose that, follow any steps it asks you to do. Remember where the OPML file is saved. (This is very important!)
10) Now go back into your Google Reader. (This is why I wanted you to open another tab because you can switch between the tabs easier and faster than typing in the URL.)
11) Look in the upper right hand corner. See the "Settings" option? Click it and then choose "Reader Settings"
12) Right now we are only concerned with the Import/Export . Click on it.
13) See where it wants you to browse for an OPML file? Click on "Browse" and find the OPML file that you exported from Bloglines.
14) Click on "upload"
15) Follow any suggestions.
16) When done you should have the same blogs in your Google Reader that you had in Bloglines.
17) You can make folders in Reader and move the blogs into folders. It is easy to add blogs by clicking on the Add Subscription at the top.


There you go. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Do you EQ?

Do you?

Announcing Electric Quilt 7 to be released soon.

I gotta say, I do like my EQ. I love to design quilt settings using blocks that have my actual fabric in them. EQ allows me to preview my quilts without having to cut any fabric.

I can't wait to get my copy of the new EQ.

Geeky Girl

Did you notice? There is a subtle change to The Quilter's blog. I'm using the new "Blogger In Draft Template Designer" and I absolutely love, love, love it! Makes designing templates a lot easier. Too geeky for you?

(Preliminary) Quilting

I wanted to see what Dwirling would look like on this Strip Twist pattern from Bonnie Hunter. This is one of three tops for Quilt of Valor that need to be quilted. I knew I needed to keep the quilting simple because the quilt top is so busy.

Here's the geeky girl way: I opened the photo in Adobe Photoshop Elements and added a layer above the quilt layer. With the smallest brush point and my old Wacom Graphire Tablet I started to draw my dwirling. I like it!

I found a deep enough scratch on the top of my tablet (how did that happen?) that might force me to buy a newer one since my pen keeps getting caught in the scratch. Do you know about the stuff that takes scratches out of the plastic headlamps on cars? I wonder if it would on my tablet? CarGuy has some... it might be time for a honey-do, doncha think?

I love it when a plan comes together.

Freakin' Geniuses

Remember when I said we got a Blu-ray Disc Player for Christmas? It played Star Trek fine and dandy. I even spied a Tribble in the background in one scene. So my next movie arrived from Netflix. It's a blu-ray version of IronMan. Won't play. It seems the disc player needs to have the firmware updated. I have to unplug it from both the wall and the teevee and bring it into the office where my router resides and plug it back into the wall, the monitor and the router and let it update. This might not be the only time I'll have to do this, so I was looking for a wireless (ethernet) adapter bridge so I could put this component on my WiFi network. Do you think I can find one of these around here? And under a $100? Nope. And the 14 year old geeks at the stores smirk at me and ask why I didn't get a PS3? Because it was a gift you dolt! Arggh!

I have a head ache and I'm going to bed. *sigh*

Redecorating

I have recently put on my geek hat and have redesigned a couple of blogs. One of them is Blogging Near Philadelphia. I love reading Nancy's blog and when she put out a call for help recently I came to her rescue. The other blog? Why it is mine, of course.

I have been wanting a new banner/header for quite a while. One that no one else had. It has taken a bit of time to figure out what I wanted and then to pull the elements together. This new banner allows me to change the background color to suit a whim, which at the moment is blue, my favorite color. I don't go for the cute, futzy backgrounds because they are not me. Not to mention the amount of time these backgrounds take to load, have you noticed? And because there are still people on dial-up (I can name several) that read my blog, I want it to load for them. I have always like a clean, zen style so here it is.

Banners over the years

I was recently doing a bit of file maintenance on the ole hard drive and didn't realize how many iterations of the blog banner have been done over the years.

I started with these and used them for a while:

Then I went to these:

And this last batch is what I've used for a while. The bottom two have actually been used as headers on my blurb books.

And so I wish you all a Happy Year for 2010!

Hackers and email

Just thought you might want to know that thousands of Gmail, Yahoo, AOL accounts have been compromised. Here's a link to read about it. If you are having trouble with your blogger account this could possibly have something to do with it.  Read some of the comments in the link to the alert.

RESET YOUR PASSWORD!!

I can't stress that enough. RESET YOUR PASSWORD.

I reset my password every 3 months. I make it a unique password that I can remember without having to write it down by using a mnemonic that includes a number or two. Don't know what a mnemonic is? The most famous one is, of course, royBgiv: Red Orange Yellow Blue Green Indigo Violet = the colors in the rainbow. Then there is: George Eats Old Gray Rats And Paints Houses Yellow. Take the first letter of each word and it spells geography. Make up a sentence that you can remember, don't forget to add some numbers in there, take the first letter of each word and Voila! you have a very unique password.

HTH.

Projects in the Works

The computer projects

• Now that Blurb can slurp Blogger, I've been working diligently on Blurb books of my blog. So far Year 2005 and Year 2006 are printed and Year 2007 is in the works. Year 2008 waits in the wings and Year 2009 will be done in January. I have found that I need to keep the original raw photo file for printing, otherwise the photos are so stinking tiny you can hardly see them. Year 2007 will be a better book and years 2008 onward will be okay because I still have all of those photo files.
  
• CorelDraw had to be installed at work so the cdr files I have could be converted to a file format that could be imported into InkScape. It is such an old version of CorelDraw that it will not work under Vista, hence using the work computer. I downloaded InkScape onto the home computer and like it but it cannot import cdr files yet. Now that I have converted all the files I no longer need to use CorelDraw. But I still need to learn InkScape.
  
• Grandmother Martha's two handwritten cook books are being scanned, page by page. These books not only have recipes but poetry and a list of Christmas presents she was giving to family and friends. These will be used in a future project that involves digital scrapbooking, recipes, photos and family items.

The fiber projects

• Thrifted yarn has resulted in 10 knitted hats for a local charity, a stack of crocheted afghan squares for the ShipsProject, a preemie crocheted blanket and a crocheted Project Linus blanket. Any suggestions where I can donate the preemie crocheted blanket?
  
• Gail Pan's A Christmas Wish BOM stitchery is currently caught up.
• Prepping of the over 300 applique pieces for the Iris quilt continues.
• The Firewood quilt has stalled mainly because I have been working on the Roman Shades.
• The Roman Shades (Warm Window quilts) are mostly done -- at least the sewing bit of them. I am ready to add all the rings. Once that is done we can cut the mounting boards to size. O and the metal rods that will be used for weight at the bottoms of the shades need to be cut too. I need to remember to stitch the ends of the rod pockets closed: don't need to have metal rods hurtling down upon us. Mounting these things still needs to be orchestrated.
  

New blog template

If you read my blog in a feed like Bloglines or Google Reader, you will not have noticed that I changed my template. I've been working on this off and on for a while. Lost all my widgets and had to put them back so I totally redesigned. So go on over to my blog to check it out.

Tell me what you think.