The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

Just Making Sure

Before leaving the previous post up very long, I just wanted to test it to make sure what I wrote is correct and that is works right. The tab on the Save & Share menu is called "Email to Web Site" and Picnik has an option to mail you a notification when the picture has posted successfully to your blog. Do note that your blog has to be set up to receive this sort of notification and it is during this setup that you acquire the secret e-mail address that allows you to upload text and images to your blog without having to log in. So safeguard that addie!

Picnik is Really Fun

Today I learned about the free Picknik utility which facilitates posting photos to a blog by e-mail.Amazingly, all you have to do if your blog platform or photo gallery is supported, is upload your photo, apply any special effects, and then select save and share to e-mail it, as I have done here, to your blog or some other destination. 

Another thing I learned today, in connection with this is that it is, after all, possible to insert an unpublished  JPEG image into a G-mail message.  Hitherto I had though that only published images could be inserted.  Silly me.  Just load any image from your desktop into a browser tab or window.  Then click on the image and use ControlA to highlight it and ControlC to capture and return to the text line of your outgoing G-mail message and ControlV to pop it in.  Yes, the image is re-scalable.  Wahoo!   I generally use IncrediMail to send pictures, but it is great to know it can be done in G-mail too.

Don't know the URL for local images on your desktop?  Just type this in:  file:///C:/Users/

That will bring up an index showing your files and directories.  Another thing, although I have used Capture Professional for years for screen grabs, and more recently, Screen Hunter, our new computer runs on Vista, which has a screen grab utility built in.  To find it just click on your Start button and under All Programs choose Accessories to locate Vista's Snipping Tool.  Hey, but Picknik is easier and unless you upgrade to Premium, which I probably will, after all it is free.

Try Piknik for Yourself!

It's a Boy

Nothing fancy, as I'm waiting for my new graphics pad to arrive. 













But if you like this sort of thing, I have put up another new drawing on drAnn's Art: - -New Drawing

TrackVia's Online Database Services Rock!

I have been using TrackVia's online database services for over a month now, and all I can say is WOW!  If they get an affiliate program I will join in an eye blink, because I just cannot say enough about this resource:

TrackVia

Their free trial period includes full support, so there is nothing to lose.  Why do I like it?  Hitherto, I have kept all my budget data, inventory, shopping lists, calendar, etc. on a Palm PDA because I had never found a Windows-based fully functional relational database that had all the features I needed and wanted. 

TrackVia does not quite meet the "fully functional" definition yet because they lack a few functions needed to actually replace a spreadsheet, but they are working on those, and what they have already is light years ahead of any other database I know for the things I need to do and way more affordable than any other web-based database service I know. 

My two biggest needs are total portability and the ability to add and change fields quickly and intuitively on the fly.  At present it lags just a tiny bit behind Dataviz's brilliant SmartList software, but that one is limited to  Palm-OS software.  TrackVia databases do not have to be synched!  Wahoo! 

This is not a paid post. 

Magic Jack Got Pushed to the Back

Acquiring a Helio Ocean dumb-phone sort of mitigated my need to hurry up and install Magic Jack on the computer at our summer place.  I promised to do that and write about it here, but decided to postpone the job until June. 

June is almost here!

At least I was able to get a pink one:
















If the name is unfamiliar to you, this gadget plugs into the USB port of a laptop (or other Windows-based computer) and brings up software that emulates as telephone.   Assuming that it works, and mine did on the first test, but then I ran into some conflicts with other software I later installed, the whole cost of the unlimited calling within the US and back to the US from just about anywhere is a one-time fee of about $40 and then less than $20 per YEAR thereafter. 

Unlimited calling for less that sixteen cents a day sounds pretty unbelievable, but there are some very happy MJ users out there in the real world.  If you have a land-line phone, I would not suggest you terminate their service just yet.  However, I don't.  We fired the greedy land-line phone company 3 years ago without a regret.  Our issue was that since we move back and forth between carriers every year, it seemed unreasonable for the phone companies at each end to charge exorbitant disconnect/reconnect fees.  VOIP works fine for us.  Our current service is from TeleBlend, the company that bailed the failed SunRocket's customers.  We liked SunRocket.  Even if they did not live up to their promises, they still saved us a lot of money over the couple years we used them.  But Magic Jack was too intriguing not to check out and is much smaller to carry around than the old SunRocket Gismo. 

As soon as I get a few other projects finished, I'll plug the MJ in over here and let you know the results.

Two Can Ship Cheaper Than One

If there is anything cooler than matching travel vests, it is getting free shipping when you order them from LA Police Gear.  Not only do they sell to civilians, but some of their gear makes a fashion statement that fits with my laid-back travel style.

OK, they call them tactical vests, but I can live with that, as long as they give us a choice between having the pouch kit included or not.   Since target practice is my favorite sport I like the "locked and loaded" version which includes a holster pouch and other tactical gear. 

Here is their main page, where the current promotion is the Blackhawk SERPA tactical holster:

tactical holster

Here is the vest I like: We'll take two!

But hubby wants the free hat instead of all those pouches, so he prefers this one:

His Choice 

Either way, don't forget to enter the coupon code for  free shipping on the 511 products!*

*That may be a limited time offer.

If this keeps up I may have to start a separate blog just for gardening stuff.  It is getting to be an obsession.  Who ever would have thought we could grow our own luscious food with no dirt, no chemistry, no complicated equipment in no time at all.

The little plastic domes are now off all of the seedlings that we started on May 17.  The snow peas did not sprout, nor did the cress, so I added okra and summer squash.  I had not thought we would have time to harvest the squash before we have to shut the gardening down and head back to Arizona in late summer, but the things that are growing are growing so fast in there, I decided to give it a try.

See:
This garden is now 8 days old, but the marigold on the end was transplanted from dirt, of course.  If anyone decides to click on the photo for a closer look,  my experiments from left to right, then clockwise are as follows:

1. Summer Squash
2. Okra
3. Kale
4. Marigold
5. Marjoram
6. Lettuce
7. Purple Hot Peppers
If you notice that the label is lifting up on the far side of that marjoram, it is because it is sharing the grow-hole with a single Scarlett Runner Bean that is starting out boldly with a giant leaf.  Some of my experiments do get a little wild. 

Oh, yes, I drew my first AeroGarden cartoon.  It is HERE.

And here are our 5 day-old Okra seedlings:

Ann's Three-Bean Cactus Salad

If you are tired of the same old 3-bean salad, here is an updated version, which includes an herb harvested fresh from our sophisticated new AeroGarden indoor planter:

Hungry?  Here is the Recipe

Also, if you were just getting used to it, I had to take the Twitter widget off my sidebar because it was hanging up the whole blog. I know some brilliant netizen posted a fix for that somewhere, but for now I just went in and disabled the cute little thing. But you can still go over to my Twitter link and click Follow Me if you want to be in the loop: Follow Me!

Our Second Aerogarden Arrived Yesterday

Check this out!

Wait just a minute, you say, how did that marigold get so big in just one day?   

Our first computerized planter, an AeroGarden 3 is so-named because it has only three grow holes, but this is the Deluxe, which has seven.  So here is what I planted in it:

1.  Purple Super Hot Peppers,  which have already sprouted.  No, they do not have green leaves yet, but the stems are showing in the crevasse in their foam grow sponse, so it is just a matter of hours before they will be beguiling us with little green leaves. 

2.  Snow Peas.  The seeds have expanded, but who knows what is going on beneath the surface.  Those puppies are now about the size of garbanzos. 

3.  Kale is a fast grower. It is has already climbed above the foam and tiny yellow/green leaves are visible.

4.  Cress.  I have never grown garden cress before, but the seed packets were on sale for 17 cents at the dollar store, so why not?  These were tiny little seeds, so if I put them too far down in the foam carrier, they may not germinate.  One of the most exciting things about AeroGardening is that we will know in a day or two, with plenty of time to replant. 

5.  The only kind of lettuce available from the dollar store was Grand Rapids Leaf Lettuce.  Conveniently, that was exactly the one we wanted to try first.

6.  I cannot seem to grow marjoram successfully in pots, but the one pictured above has survived for a year from cuttings that I keep taking off the gnarly main plant and rooting in water.  Then I stick them back in the pot so there is something growing by the time the old plant dies.  This time I cut one of the grow sponges in half and stuck the already rooted cuttings encased by the sponge into a hinged basket.  The AeroGrow directions say to use a heated iron to secure their label to the basket, but as that was not feasible with an already rooted plant, I rolled out a very thin strip of sticky-tacky and placed it around the top of the basket, then pressed the label down.  It stuck.  That way if one of my experiments doesn't work, I can reuse the label.    Then, just for fun, I stick a single Scarlet Runner Bean in the same sponge as an afterthought, just to see what would happen.

7.  The marigold?  Oh, that is from the dollar store, too, and as an experiment, I put the plant, dirt and all in a bowl of room temperature filtered water and let it soak for a few hours.  Then I shook it gently, and lifted the roots right out of the soil and placed the whole plant in another bowl of water where I shook it again to get most of the soil out of the root.  Again, I cut a grow sponge in half and then in half again, and used the pieces to cushion the roots, encased it in a basket, cut a slit halfway through the label and again, applied it with sticky-tacky and popped the already blossoming marigold into the seventh hole. 

Although  a few people have been heard to grumble about the price Aerogarden charges for their growing kits,  I think they are well worth the price.  The seed kits are 100 percent guaranteed, and the Master Gardener kit makes it possible for people like me who are totally incompetent at dirt gardening to take a penny's worth seeds from the dollar store and have more fun than a barrel full of monkeys, not to mention having a house full of little green friends that thrive and grow instead of falling by the wayside.

And how they grow!  No, the yellow marigold did not emerge fully grown like Goddess Athena from the brain Zeuss, but so far it looks as though it is going to weather the transition from dirt to artificial life-support, and it sure does give us something nice to look at until the rest of the new plants catch up. 

Social Spark is Live!

Yes, many people are excited about this. 

Until recently, the nickname for bloggers who accepted assignments from PayPerPost to help advertisers get the word out about their products and services by blogging for pay were called Posties.   Now there is another nickname for some of us--Sparkies. 

That is because we belong to PayPerPost's Sister Program called Social Spark, which is a "Social Marketing Network."  What is the difference?  On Social Spark both Posties and Advertisers can create their own profiles and interact directly.   Whereas PayPerPost assignments are selected one at a time from a list of current offers, through Social Spark,  the Sparkies and advertisers can get together and arrange whatever works best for both of them.   An advertiser who is pleased with a bloggers work can seek the blogger out of Social Spark and solicit a standing ad.  Too cool. 

                                    SocialSpark  

 

I am excited about this, but in a disclosable manner, lol.  THIS IS A PAID POST :-) 

However, there is no kind of compensation that would persuade me to clutter up my blog with a viewpoint regarding any product or service that I didn't like.   Disclosure is good!

In fact, this new kind of disclosure opportunity offered by SocialSpark, where the advertiser/blogger relationships are listed openly in an online community is what I find most appealing about SocialSpark.  Negatives?  I haven't been there long enough to tell.  So far I like the program. 

Now that you know that I am going to be a Sparky as well as a Postie, since you stuck with me this long you might as well have a wee look at my brand new SocialSpark Profile:

Never mind that goofy cartoon cat
who follows me around.

This is the real me!

So why did I pick my own profile to brag about instead of somebody else's?  The cat made me do it!

Although I joined Social Spark about a month ago, and apparently before it went mainstream, it was not until today that I got around to submitting a profile.  In case you missed it two paragraphs up, here it is again:

My SocialSpark profile!