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VO is On the Air 1/26/10

CLICK HERE VO 1/26/10

TIP: In VO we need a UPS

(Not “Brown”-but yes, we need that guy as well.)

Today our power went out. Again.

VO has been described as having gone from a 4-star resort to a 3rd world country.

So we need to protect our equipment, and a power strip isn’t how to do that. You should get a UPS, an Uninterupable Power Supply. It is like a large, heavy (because of the battery) power strip. The battery keeps your equipment going when the electricity unexpectedly disappears. They come in different sizes, you probably want to get as much power as you can afford. depending on what equipment you need to protect. That big-screen TV counts, too.

A 1500VA UPS can be had for $150 – $200.

A UPS has both battery-fed, and simply surge-protected outlets. When the power goes out, whatever is plugged ito the former instantly goes on battery power. Your laptop can be plugged into a non-battery outlet. To keep the internet hot, plug your broadband modem and wireless router into the UPS.

You need it to provide power to your computer to keep you from losing data. If you also plug in printers, especially a laser printer it can drain pretty quickly. And batteries are always iffy. After a year or so, unplug it and see how long it will power your computer.  If it dies almost immediately, check to see you don’t have something power-hungry plugged into a UPS receptacle. You may need to replace the battery.

Information in this post was taken in part from an article in Macworld by Christopher Breen.

Go to a movie site to learn more:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054588/

Rotten Tomatoes – Reviews

Venture Out is On The Air

Click this link:

VO ON AIR 1-19-10

VOTE FOR MOVIE: Jan. 23

Quick poll: closes Tuesday, Jan. 19, Midnight.

Top three non chosen vote-getters from last time PLUS:

Herb and Dorothy –  He was a postal clerk. She was a librarian. With their modest means, the couple managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history. (from IMDB.com)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – need we say more?

You can also write-in your own choice as one of your two picks.

TOUCH OF GENIUS is the Jan. 23 Movie.

Wine and Cheese Party Video

TIP: Typing Special Characters

PC: Occasionally we need the symbol for the English Pound, the Euro, or the little circle for degree of temperature, copyright, etc.  HERE is a list of codes to let you do that for some characters.  Just hold down the Alt key, and use the number pad to enter the number from the list for the symbol you wish to use. (See more below)

On the Mac (OS 10.6): There is a little icon in your top menubar that looks like this:

(To show this Character Viewer icon: Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Language & Text, and then click Input Sources and  select the Keyboard & Character Viewer checkbox.) Clicking it will give you all the info you need, and/or it will insert any special character you choose from the window that opens. The “Keyboard Viewer” gives you a picture of the keyboard which changes when you press the keys: shift, control, etc. This shows you the keyboard combinations for the most commonly used special characters. Option key+the intuitive character is the most likely combination: i.e. Option-r for ®.

If you need something special, up to and including the Chinese character for “tree”, any character in any font on your computer, you can open the “Character Viewer:”

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Simply select the character and click the “insert” button at the bottom and it will put that character in your document where your curser is.

More about the PC, from Mel Ellington:

Typing ALTERNATE KEY codes like ALT-0151 is not necessary in Windows to obtain special characters such as ® or § or é.

Windows XP and 7 include the Character Map and On-screen Keyboard programs which are similar to utilities on the Macintosh.  Those Windows utilities are found under the START>ACCESSORIES menu.  The Character Map utility shows which alternate key code to use to get the special characters, or optionally you can select the special character from the on-screen palette.

Those arcane Alternate key codes are one example of the unfortunate legacies that have encumbered PC users for over 25 years.

In contrast, special characters on the Macintosh have been assigned mnemonically to OPTION keys.  There is no OPTION modifier key on the PC.  For example, when I want to type ® on the Mac I use option-r.  Typing the ¢ is option-$.  The en dash ‘–’ is typed by option-dash (dash=hyphen=minus).  The em dash ‘—’ is shift-option-dash.  The ∑ is option-w.  Mu ‘µ’ is option-m.  In other words, Apple has endeavored to make it easier to remember how to type these special characters, without necessity of remembering some absurd alternate-code such as ALT-0162 for ¢.

When a Macintosh is using a standard PC keyboard the WINDOWS/START key becomes the Mac COMMAND key and the PC’s ALTERNATE key becomes the Mac OPTION key.  The CONTROL and SHIFT keys are the same on both platforms (for the most part).

On the PC I type alternate-0150 to get an em dash.  Obtaining the em dash through the Character Map every time I want to use it is just too darn slow and cumbersome, so regrettably, I have had to memorize that arcane alternate code, because I often need to type an em dash.

Some relief from this tedium on the PC can be gained by using keyboard macro programs that allow you to assign those special characters to keyboard shortcuts.  But without a fourth modifier key such as the Mac ‘option’ key, the Microsoft Window’s control, shift, and alternate keys are quickly overwhelmed by keyboard assignments.

(Fred Wightman, Jim Hayden and Mel Ellington contributed to this article)

MORE than you need to know-FREE

Here is a direct link to FREE download of Belarc Advisor.  The opening page gives a description if this program but basically, after you install it, the program scans your system and makes a complete list of all the hardware and software on your computer including the version numbers of each item.  Probably more info than you need to know BUT, if you ever have a crash and have to redo your system this is a valuable list.

If you have a Mac you don’t need this, since you can click the apple in the corner of your screen, and choose “About This Mac.” When that opens, if you cllick “More info” and you will get, as we said, more than you need to know.

http://belarc.com/free_download.html

Saturday is Movie Night at VO

Meryl Streep channels Julia Child