My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on April 15, 2017

Standing up for your own views is a good thing. Recognizing the views and values of others is a great thing. Coming together in respect for others is much too rare a thing … but it is likely the only way we’ll find peace while living here on this earth.

Whether or not you accepted Jesus as your Savior or recognize the Deity of Christ  (email me if you’re on the fence) … don’t let His teaching and message of LOVE for mankind get lost this Easter.

“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? “And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. “And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ “I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. – Luke 15:4-7

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.  – John 3:16-17

Category: Faith, Holiday, Human Interest, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: bible, christianity, easter, Faith, jesus, love, message, religion, values, views

Posted By RichC on April 14, 2017

Last week someone asked me about my large screened notebook, the 15.6″ Lenovo Yoga 710 with an Intel i5-7200U CPU (2.50GHz), 8 GB memory and a rather smallish 256GB SSD. The question was whether I would recommend it. The answer is yes … if you can live with a couple small nits that I have mentioned before:

1. right shift key
2. questionable trackpad
3. jumpy cursor (solved) 
4. small type resolution in the normal 100% full screen mode (adjustable)

Category: Advice, Computer, Technology, Video | No Comments »
Tags: Computer, lenovo, notebook, review, tech friday, techfriday, youtube

Posted By RichC on April 13, 2017

This content is restricted.

Category: Archive, Memories, Personal, Photos, Video | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, anniversary, careers, drew, drone, family, katelyn, quadcopter, video, zatko

Posted By RichC on April 12, 2017

It’s not exactly pristine landscaping this year at the Corbett abode, but seeing the rapidly growing grass and spring flowers popping out feels good. This is the first year that I recall actually missing winter.

Category: Misc, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: flowers, grass, house, landscaping, magnolia, spring, tullips, yard

Posted By RichC on April 12, 2017

Although this seems a tad bit goofy … as a backpacker, cruising sailor, vagabond traveler … there are occasions where water is limited or a proper bathroom facility is non-existent that this could come in handy.

Category: How-To, Innovation, Misc, Video | No Comments »
Tags: bottle, creative, engineer, hair, washing

Posted By RichC on April 11, 2017

This content is restricted.

Category: Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, family, justin, katelyn, minneapolis, minnesota, princess, starwars

Posted By RichC on April 10, 2017

While listening to background music this past weekend (working on taxes), it became an easy decision post something on music. Next … decide which group and song to include without repeating something mentioned before on My Desultory Blog?

How about Three Dog Night???

The rock band was not necessarily in my record (or cassette tape) collection "back in the day," likely because their music was slightly before I was listening,  but my college roommate Jerry Moody played their music all the time … so I listened.

One song, Shambala (written by Daniel Moore) never fails to get my toe tapping, so I’ll include the Three Dog Night version as the Music Monday song (it was also recorded by country artist B.W. Stevenson). Shambala was the first song on "side 2" of their CYAN album, but rose to a #3 single on the Billboard Magazine Hot 100 back in 1973 — I really have never given any attention (so why now?) As a performing group, Three Dog Night was in it’s heyday between 1969 and 1976 … with the original three lead singers reuniting the band in 1981 for a few years. They continued perform in the 1990s and 2000s with occasional changes in faces. Of the original "Three Dogs" —lead singers — only Danny Hutton continues to tour .. but to sold out venues, proving their sound and music is still enjoyed today! (Cory Wells passed way in 2015 and Chuck Negron left in the mid-1980s in his continuing heroin addiction struggle).

EDIT add from YouTube:

Category: Audio, Music, Video | No Comments »
Tags: album, Music, music monday, musicmonday, record, shambala, song, three dog night, youtube

Posted By RichC on April 9, 2017

Survey and ratings systems are a pet peeve of mine ever since finding out many places that use a rating scale (like 1- 5 or 0 – 10), will only count a perfect score as suitable to reward, complement or evaluate service, products and employees in a positive way. I’ve even stopped trying to offer constructive feedback since learning that often a slightly less than perfect score is recorded as a negative (particularly when it comes to a person and their service). Marking a 4 in a 5 point scale, or 9 in a 10 point scale is many times counted against an employee or team in an evaluation. Seems ridiculous right?

So my theory is to either rate a perfect score or not at all, unless a negative is really necessary … and in those cases post/add a comment as to why.

Netflix has decided against their old 5-star rating system and is going with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down (take a look next time you stream a movie). Good for them … it makes it easier and probably more effective … now how do we get service companies to do the same?

Category: Business, Movies | 1 Comment »
Tags: netflix, ratings, review, stars, survey, thumbs

Posted By RichC on April 8, 2017

As happens every year, a "not so bright" woodpecker decides to wake us up by pecking on our chimney cap. The noise resonates down the flue and can be pretty loud in the house. Crazy Woody!

But since I’ve been wanting to experiment with my relatively new Lumix GX8 and long lens (a 100-300mm zoom), this was a perfect opportunity for a shaky handheld fully zoomed in photo and a short stabilized video. The quality was less than I had hoped. Watch the video and you can see the lens stabilization working overtime (a short 1 minute video below). 

Category: Nature, Personal, Photography, Photos, Technology, Video | No Comments »
Tags: birds, camera, chimney, gx8, lens, lumix, stabilization, woodpecker, zoom

Posted By RichC on April 7, 2017

At one time or the other, we have all started to pull our hair out while on the computer and  said, “this is ridiculous, why doesn’t someone fix this!”

Well after literally years of waiting for Google to do something about the “sensitive scroll feature” (or curse) when moving through the months in Google Calendar, I had had enough. It happened one too many times where I scheduled an appointment in the wrong month because the calendar jumps due to the sensitivity of the touch device (pad or mouse). So after complaining for years and expecting a “fix” from Google, I realized I was not alone and others had devised a fix. Ivan Morgillo made a simple extension and it solved the problem — disable the “annoying month change on scroll” … I just hope it doesn’t bloat and cause other problems!

To date, 3,468 users have given this extension a try … and several have left appreciative comments:

Thank goodness! This restored my sanity. Using a Magic Mouse with Google Calendars was annoying, until now.

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Thank you SOOO much! I use Google Chrome’s calendar with a magic mouse and the erratic jumping around has been driving me crazy for ages. This fixed the problem in seconds. I really appreciate someone doing something about this frustrating problem!

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Thank you ! I use Google Chrome’s calendar with a mac track pad and the erratic jumping around has been driving me crazy since day one! This extension fixed it immediately. I added it to chrome, refreshed my calendar and voila! Its amazing how something so simple can cause so much frustration and how simply fixing it can make my work day so much easier.

EDIT for 2020: After receiving both an email and comment, it was time to revisit the scrolling issue for the Google Calendar since switching from Chrome to Brave (a Chrome-based browser). Hopefully this Google Calendar Scroll Disabler extension will continue to work — updating the link and confirming all is still working with Brave on the Mac with an Apple Magic Mouse and the Google Calendar (to date over 10,000+ users are using it, so come on Google, update/fix your calendar for Mac users).

Category: Advice, Computer, Productivity, Software | No Comments »
Tags: browser, calendar, chrome, disabler, extension, google, plugin, scroll, tech friday, techfriday