More computer troubles

I called Faye, today. She told me that I can get a hold of her through Face book. I tried and found a lot of Fayes. She didn't have her picture posted. I had to register with Facebook in order to do a good search. I never did find her. I'll have to tell her to put up her picture so that people will know where to go. I don't think I prefer Facebook to a blog, anyway.
Alice's computer is messed up. The hard drive is running and running for no reason. It might have something to do with her CMOS memory battery. I'm going to change that, tomorrow. It might have something to do with the virus attack that happened today. Wall Street was pretty much shut down for a while. Maybe I should load Linux on her machine. We'll see.
My desktop had the hard drive running a lot for no discernible reason for a while. I had it in Windows mode because I was downloading pictures from my camera. I haven't been able to get my camera to work with Linux. Maybe it had something to do with updates. Maybe it was a virus attack. I don't know.
Dave W. was having troubles with his Thinkpad at to co-op. I told him to use Linksys as his server here. The co-op's server is too limiting. I can't even get email using it. Linksys has no problems.
I'm using a computer that has no pictures on it. I might load one, later.
I'm getting another old Gateway from Nick, tomorrow. He said that it's a 9100. I looked up that number on Ebay, last night. The only thing that I could have used off of it was the ac adapter and I bought one, yesterday. I was interested to find out that it runs at 600 megherz. That is as fast as my 9300s. If it is a 9100, it will be a good machine to give to somebody.
I loaded a picture of some flowers at the hospital. They have a nice garden, there. They had both vegetables, and flowers.

This is a picture of Brian, getting his new, old laptop at the Co-op.
I gave him an old Thinkpad a couple of days ago. That was my last Thinkpad. I think I'll quit working on them because I couldn't get the sound working right with Linux. Microsoft quit supporting it's older operating systems, so you can't update anything older than XP. This makes it hard to work on them. Linux is the normal answer. I think I'll just get some newer Thinkpads. Maybe model a31s and newer. They'll be fast enough for the video and sound to work right.
I've been working on old Gateway 9300's lately. I had to scrap out 2 of them. One had a dead processor and the other wouldn't see it's cd drive. Now I don't have to get as many parts for the computers that I have working.
I might try to sell one tomorrow. I could use the money to build newer computers.
I checked on the price that the local trailer park charges for camper. Out in California, I lived for a number of years in an RV. It turns out that here the price is prohibitive. They don't rent for more than 2 weeks and then they want $17/day. That comes to more than $500/month. I think living in your trailer is out, here. That's just another reason to move back to California.
I rather liked trailer living. Inside the trailer was a bit crowded, so you stayed outside most of the time. It forced you to keep your possessions limited. And, of course, moving was easy. I'm going to look into it some more. Maybe I could get an RV and park it on my land, whilst I tear down my old moblehome. I might be able to stay in it while I build another home, here. I'll have to examine my options.

At Barnes and Noble

Alice and I are at Barnes and Noble, in La Crosse, today. She decided to shop for books and I'm just along for the ride. I never miss a chance to come here. I enjoy the food as well as leafing through all the books.
I'm looking for something on digital photography. I'm thinking about getting a Cannon Powershot camera. I need something that is small enough to fit into the pocket and yet is stabilized. I also want something that has a zoom lens.
I gave away another computer, last night. I saw Brian, who is a chimney builder, at the co-op. I know that he uses computers a lot, so I gave him my last Thinkpad. I never did get the sound working right. I last saw him at Magpies, using that laptop. I think he's happy with it.
I now have two working computers to give away, and 2 that will need parts. When I'm done blogging I'll go to Ebay and bid on parts. I need a couple of hard drive caddies and a hard drive. I'll also need ac adapters and a cd drive and a floppy drive. I feel a bit cheated to buy a floppy drive since I couldn't imagine using one. I'll need it to hold the hard drive in. That's the way these old Gateways are designed.
Well I think I'll get on Ebay now. Later

Bookends password fails again

I'm at Bookends and Beans, staying out of the heat, and Caroline is today's barista.
I tried using my good computer with the best wi-fi card, but I couldn't get past the password.
I went to the car and brought out an old laptop with a marginal wi-fi card, and it works fine.
Strange things are happening to my post. I'm getting larger letters than usual and the picture of Caroline comes and goes.
I do have to learn how to write these posts with a word processor and then transfer it to Blogspot.
Anyway, I got the bad laptop to work. It turned out that it needs a good battery to turn on properly. If I leave a battery out, it will work as well. If I have a bad battery in it, it just hangs up.
Now I'll have to buy all sorts of stuff to get the three laptops in working order.
I'll have money in Paypal next Monday so I'll start bidding then.
I was thinking about my buying Delphi bonds. I think I'll curtail it for a while. I would be better off buying junk bonds in the JNK etf. I'll save enough money that way, over time, to pay off the credit cards. I would like to be out of debt. If the house sells, I'll both pay off the credit cards and buy more Delphi. I could also buy a new car with the cash for clunkers program.
I'll see.
Well, I've got a bunch of updates to load on this machine.
I got thrown out of Bookends, as it was 4:00 and that's when they close on Saturdays.
I'm finishing loading the updates on my old machine at home. From there I went to Java John's. My good machine works just fine here. I think the problem I was having at Bookends had to do with their password, not my machine or wi-fi card.
I have a lot of problems with their password protection.
I was thinking about what I could tell disabled people today.
I found that you can delay paying credit card debt, practically indefinitely. My bankruptcy lawyer had me quit paying back in 2001. I got a lot of phone calls but I simply disconnected my phone. Some of them put a judgement against my bank account. I simply closed that account.
Since then, I had another lawyer contact my creditors to pay 40% of what I owed them. I payed some of them, but I ran out of money before they were all payed. I'm now trying to save up the money to pay the rest of them. There doesn't really seem to be much that they can do. Of course, I have bad credit and won't be able to buy, large ticket, items. But that is really not a big problem. I just don't buy things. Life goes on.
I will be happier when I get them paid off, however.

This is a picture of the girl who gives me free coffee at the co-op.
If you go there after 7:15 in the evening, they will give you coffee for free. They do that rather than throw it out. They close at 8:30 and hardly anyone drinks coffee that late. I'm their only regular for the free coffee. Even I don't drink it every night.
Its a nice place to surf the net and read as well. I keep a book in my car for reading at coffee shops. I don't spend very much there. I normally nurse a cup of coffee for an hour. I used to eat muffins as well, but I'm trying to lose weight and save money.
Well, one of my new Gateways is trying to die. It refuses to get out of the setup mode. I can't get it to boot. I'm afraid that I'll have to scrap it out. The good thing about that is that I won't have to buy a bunch of things to complete another old laptop. I'm talking about things like hard drives, and their caddies, or AC adapters. I would even need a cd player for it. If I scrap it I'll save much money. I think I'll scrap it.
I haven't talked much about the (Cash for Clunkers) program, lately. I tried to sign up for it but I would have had to spend an extra $10,000 for the Chrysler that I looked at. I then went to a Ford dealer and he told me that my car didn't qualify. It had too good of gas mileage. With the over drive transmission, my car is rated at 19 mile/gal. The cutoff was 18 miles/gal. I would have just sold the car at a profit, anyhow. I can't justify having a new car. But I'm not one to refuse free money.
Later

I uploaded a picture of the Upper Iowa River.
Big things are happening here. I got my home internet hooked up. It's a cable connection. It works really well.
I found that my Linux on my desktop didn't have enough hard drive space for the updates. It's sharing the drive with Windows. Windows had too much room, so I loaded Mint Linux, and mapped out plenty of space for it.
I really like Mint Linux. It just looks better and seems to run good.
Dave at WRAP had troubles with his laptop. It turned out that the ports for the USB and PCMCIA weren't working. I swapped with a good Gateway. I then reloaded SUSE Linux and it's happy. I'll have to watch that hard drive and see if the problem comes back.
I got my Gateways that I've been waiting for, today. I got all three working with the parts off of the bad Gateway. One had a bad CPU and monitor. The others were only missing things and had bad CMOS batteries. One of the CMOS batteries seems to work. The others are bad. I'll see about getting those from Radio Shack.
I loaded Mint Linux on one of the new Gateways. It seems to be working well. The other two are missing hard drives.
On the disability front. Now that you are getting your Social Security, have you given any thought towards leaving the country?
I've given it some thought. It would be a way to hold down expenses. You can collect your Social Security checks anywhere, so why not go somewhere that the cost of living is low and you have nice weather?
A good book on the topic is (Getting Out) Your guide to leaving America, by Mark Ehrman.
I was thinking about Belize, because they speak English and I have a problem with Spanish. Panama and Costa Rica look attractive. I like their health care. Basically it's socialized medicine.
I may not get around to it if I find an inexpensive, rent-assisted apartment. It depends on how much I can shave off of my expenses, here. The weather, here, bothers me, however. I'll keep looking into it.
Later

I'm at Bookends and Beans, today. I'm having troubles getting the Gateway laptop to hook up to the internet. I gave up on the Great Quality. I had to reboot 3 times for the Gateway to work. Maybe I should have kept rebooting for the other computer.
I'm still waiting for the 3 Gateway laptops to arrive in the mail. They should have been here by now. Maybe it takes longer for large packages to ship in the mail.
I got the Thinkpad to work with the Lucent wifi card. I won't be able to use it at Bookends, with their password. At least it's working good enough to give the computer to somebody.
I talked with Dan Micals about the rent-assisted apartments. It turns out that the electricity isn't free. Since the heating and stoves are electric that means I won't save much on that. That will cost me an additional $100/month. I would cancel my name from those lists, except that once I sell the house I'll have $20 to 30 thousand to invest. Of course, my investment leave a lot to be desired.
The GM bonds are doing good. I made about $700 in the last week on them. I haven't sold yet. I want enough money to pay off the credit cards. I've got another $4000 to go.
I was thinking about disability and savings. As hard as it is, I believe that a person on disability should still save. Paying off the credit cards is a worthy goal, but a person should still set aside some money for emergencies. One never knows when the car will give out or you have dental problems. It never hurts to be prepared for that kind of emergency.
I'm now saving more than I was when I had a job. It's simply a matter of living cheaply. Eat at home and hold your expenses down. You can do it.