A rainy day in Decorah

I uploaded a picture of Magpie Coffee shop. It's been a Decorah institution for years. The internet,there, goes to a cable modem,
so most of the time it's really fast. Occasionally, I've had problems getting on line there. They are opened between 10 and 4 on Sundays. When the co-op is too slow or doesn't work, this is where I go on Sundays. Too bad, I couldn't get a picture without a car in front.
I got the last Thinkpad to working. The strange memory problem turned out to be related to a bad CMOS battery. I don't know how that can be. The problem went with the battery. Now I think I'll load SUSE on it, since I can better fix the sound card problem with SUSE.
I got the computer that I sold to Dave from WRAP, back. It had a bad hard drive. I put in another drive, and got it to work. I downloaded the updates, this morning. It's working really well. I saved the hard drive by putting it in the Thinkpad and loading Mint Linux. That partitioner worked better. It still sacrificed half of the hard drive but the other half seems to work.
It's raining on the Nordic Fest festivities. Nordic Fest is in full bloom. The downtown area is blocked off and food stands and music stations are set up there. The parade is tomorrow. Alice and I are going to LaCrosse to avoid it. I don't get many chances to get to LaCrosse, so I jump at any chance.
Tonight I'm helping to set up the float for the Democrats. It'll only take an hour or so.
I'm bidding on 3 Gateway 9300's. If I get them I should be able to get one or two good laptops out of the batch. I've got a lot of left over parts from the last batch. If one of them runs right off the bat, I'll have the ac adapter and hard drive for it. Maybe I can get a good battery out of them.
That's it for now. I gave up on the lottery.

Yesterday was bad for old laptops

I'm sorry that I didn't post a blog yesterday. I was busy with old laptops.
Dave W. returned his. It was all locked up. The menu icon was missing. I think he fouled it up by shutting it down wrong. He also didn't know how to access the internet.
The internet in town has been rather spotty. I've had troubles everywhere except Bookends and Beans. I don't know if he had troubles with the machine or with somebodies internet service.
I also had a Gateway that quit accessing the hard drive. Today, I took the processor out of one of the Gateways and put it into the other. Now, I seem to have one good machine. It has troubles with the lights not working on the leds. I also left off some decorative trim on the telephone and network ports. I'll see about fixing that latter. I'm just happy that I got one out of two to work.
I'm having troubles with the ram drives as well. Maybe I just need to boot up with one of them in the slot. The screen flickered a bit as well. Maybe I wasn't as successful as I thought with the transplant.
I uploaded a picture of the flowers, in front of the hospital, on Montgomery Street. I think I already uploaded a picture of a bee from that day.
About the disability section. A lot of people who are disabled don't like to be defined by their disability. By that I mean a blind person wants to be seen as a person first and blind, secondarily. Of course, I'm grateful for my Social Security check, but there is more to me than just a schizophrenic person. I'm also an investor, a homeowner, and a repairer of old laptops. There are other things about me that I feel are important. Some of these include, being a Democrat, a spiritually developing person, and a major consumer of coffee. Something that is also important to me lately is loosing weight. I'm missing the WRAP meeting. Later

The Gateway is toast

I got a CMOS battery for the Gateway with intermittent problems. It didn't fix it. I'll have to scrap it out. I'll probably get another shell from Ebay and put the drives and batteries into that. The trouble with that is that it will cost more for shipping and handling than it will be worth. I like the Gateways, however. They are almost fast enough for streaming video. They work pretty well with audio. And, of course, they are just fine for surfing the net and word processing. I may have to do the same thing with the bad Thinkpad.
I went to a free movie, today. It was a promotion that the local banks put on. I think it was mainly for kids. The name of the movie was "Hotel for Dogs". It was silly. Totally impossible, but fun.
Afterwards, I went to Jim and Sherry's for lunch. I overate. I'm trying to lose weight but I ate 2 turkey and cheese sandwiches. For me, that is overdoing it. I'm trying to keep my dinner light, by only eating a bowl of soup.
I updated a couple of computers, today. I was surprised at how long it took. I must have spent two and a half hours updating the good Thinkpad. The good Gateway only took two hours. That is just too much time. I updated them last week so that was 1 weeks worth of updating. I was under the impression that Linux wouldn't do all the updating that Windows does. That was one of the advantages of the operating system. SUSE Linux seems to update more than Windows. I could select the things I want to update but I'm not certain that I know enough to make informed decisions. So I update everything. When you have 5 computers, that means that much of your time is spent updating things.
Alice picked out a picture of the reading room at Java Johns for the blog,today.

Another laptop bites the dust

One of my Gateway laptops developed an intermittent problem, this morning. It acts like I'm opening many options very quickly. This one is missing a CMOS battery. So I'll buy a battery and see if that fixes it. I don't think it will, since this problem has shown up on this computer,before. I think I'll just have to scrap it out. That's probably why someone sold it on Ebay in the first place.
I keep having problems with the word processor that comes with this blog. I need to learn how to use another one and then transfer it to the blog.
Another thing I need to look into is a list of recommended books. I read somewhere that you can add that to your blog.
I included a picture of the dining area at the co-op. It's where I write these blogs a lot. I can have a banana for under 40 cents and spend an hour or so just computing. One problem, though, is their connection. It's very restricted. I can't get to my emails, or Etrade. It's also so slow that it messes up my streaming audio. Another problem is that they have 50s music on their PA system. It's so loud that I couldn't hear my audio, if it was working.
I'm now trying to load my New Age music that is on the hard drive. I'm having problems with that, as well.
I got Banshee to work. Now I can listen to my own music. But the background noise is drowning out my music. I think I'll go to Bookends which is always quiet and their internet always works. If it wasn't for the bananas, I don't think I would come here much.
For the disabled. You are probably wondering what there is to do with your time, now that you have more time than money:
1. Take up reading. You can go to the library for free and check out books. They usually have books for sale, as well. You can probably get some paperbacks for 50 cents or less. They might have free internet access for your laptop as well. Ours has it. And its the fastest internet in town.
2. Get a hobby. Mine is fixing old laptops. It comes from my 35 years as an electronics technician. I like fixing things. I don't have the test equipment or the documentation to go very deep into repairing old laptops. But I enjoy the feeling of getting something to work.
3. Volunteer. There are places that need retired people to put in their time and expertise. SCORE Service Corps OF Retired People is one of them. They are retired business people who help others get and keep their business running. The library is a place to ask about such groups.
The co-op also needs volunteer dishwashers. They get a discount on their purchases.
4. Join organizations. I'm in the Democrat party. You might think about the United Way and other such charity organizations. The food pantry, here, is run by, and at the Lutheran Church. They need people to process the recipients of their food.
5. Hang out at coffee shops and read newspapers, and surf the Web. That's what I do with much of my time. It's also a good place to read books.
Feel free to list other options in the comments section.

Intermittant memory problems

I got up early, this morning. The first thing I did was to go for coffee at Java Johns. Then I went home and started the memory check program that comes on the installation disk of many forms of Linux.
I discovered a memory problem on one of my Thinkpads. It appeared that all of my memory sticks were bad. When I tried them in the other Thinkpad, they worked. I tried replacing the CMOS battery. Then I tried swapping the cd players. The problem stayed with the computer. Maybe there is something wrong with the motherboard. I don't know. I decided not to give away that computer. It would just have intermitant problems. I'll use it for scrap. I might get another shell of a Thinkpad 390X and put everything into it. I'll see.
I got the other Thinkpad's sound to work. I loaded Suse 11.1, and then used alsaconf. It had to be run from the command line. I had to tell it not to modify modprobe. What ever that is. It worked until I loaded the updates. Then I had to do it again.
I loaded a picture of Barret. He was pointing his table cleaning sprayer at me, at the co-op.
He's back lit so I don't know if it will turn our very well.
I'm at the co-op now. I'm listening to New Age music on the Thinkpad while I type away. I'm being a bit cheap, today. It's Sunday, and I don't feel like going to the ATM. I've got a couple of dollars until I cash Dave's check for the Gateway.
The internet from the co-op isn't working at all. I'm hooked up to someone whose router is named Linksys.
That all for now. I think I'll go home and run the memory checking program on the 2 Gateways.

Got up at 5 this morning

I got up early to help the Democrats set up for their book sale. It turned out that they already set things up yesterday.
So I went to Java Johns to load some updates on my new, old Gateway. Their internet dropped me in the middle of things 2, or 3 times. From there I went to Magpies. I had troubles there as well. I ended up linking to someone names Intellinet. That worked. Bookends seems to be the only place that works consistently. I just have to remember to bring the right wifi card.
Today, I'm using the Gateway that has a bad USB port. That means I'll have to take out the wifi module while I upload a picture from the memory board. I'll do that in a minute. I have the time to mess with it.
I got a wifi card in the mail. It's a 'B' version. It won't work at Bookends and Beans. I'll have to try it at the co-op.
I found a DVD player on one of the Gateways. I might be able to sell it to Dave. He expressed interest in having something to watch videos with. He'll need a faster machine to make it really work. Maybe I can find a 700 Meghz. machine. Even that would be pushing it. The battery on this machine seems to work. That is practically a miracle. Batteries don't last that long.
It's still cold, today. I'm wearing a sweater that I normally put away in May or June.
I think I'll try uploading a picture, now.
I uploaded a picture of a bee, at the hospital's flowers, on Montgomery St.
The bee is a bit blurred but what can you expect with a $20 camera. I could get better pictures with a hundred dollar camera, but then I would have to learn how to use it as well.
Maybe I'll do that as a hobby. It would be cheaper than putting together old laptops. After I have 100 Delphi bond, I'll think about getting into that hobby as well.
I still haven't had any success at dowsing for the lottery number. I tried it Wednesday. I didn't even get 1 number right. I might keep trying but I don't think I'll post my numbers since they don't seem to win.
You've been appealing your disability now for 2 years. Now it's time to get a lawyer. You need a lawyer for the hearing. Maybe you could have gotten one for the appeal process but you probably handled that yourself. When you get into the hearing you will feel better to have a lawyer.
The good news is that there is no 'out of pocket' costs. The lawyer will get paid on contingency. If he wins he'll get 25% of your back pay or $5300, whichever is less. If you don't win there is no costs. That protects you if you lose. You don't need added expenses if you lose. I think the fee for the lawyer is mandated by law, so you don't have to negotiate it.
An important question is: How do you find a lawyer?
Most lawyer don't want the job. Like I said their fees are limited by law and there aren't any if they lose.
I would talk to friends and neighbors about local lawyers. I got a referral from a state agency that led me to 3 lawyers. 2 of them turned me down.
Binder and Binder advertises nation-wide. At least if you call them you'll know that they do take Social Security cases. They even advertise on this blog. You might try them.

Cold day in July

It's July and it's cold enough to wear jackets. What's with the weather?
I walked from Freeport to Bookends and Beans and then back again. That's close to 9 miles. I had to wear a pullover sweatshirt. It's that cold. normally we would be dropping from the heat at this time of year. Maybe we have global warming to blame for the cold. It's probably warm as heck at the Arctic. I appreciate the cold, though.
I didn't post yesterday. I was so caught up in fixing old laptops that I forgot. I got the sound to work on the 2 Thinkpad 390X's. I loaded Linux Mint 7 and then loaded the updates. Apparently one of the updates fixes the problem. I had one of them revert back to not working on the sound, today. I tried everything I could think of. Then I reloaded Linux Mint and did the updates and it worked.
I got the bad Gateway 9300 working. I just put a working hard drive with Suse Linux on it, in. I had to find some good memory cards but the noisy problem went away. It is still missing the memory cover and a good CMOS battery. I'm tempted to use duct tape for the memory cover. The battery is on order at Venture Computers. I'm tempted to take the bad battery to Radio Shack and see if they have one.
I didn't get the picture loaded today because I left the Sandisk memory card at home. I might be able to load a picture of the huge cat, but you saw that a couple of days ago.
I actually sold one of my old laptops. Dave, at WRAP bought one of the Gateways. He's working so he isn't really a charity case. His wife will get a lot of use out of it, since she's going to school, this Fall.
I might be able to get some pictures, later. I'm going to the co-op to update the Gateway. I put a marginal hard drive into the good Gateway. I loaded Suse Linux, on it. Now, I'm going to update it.
Later.